she was, but they told her she was a stranger to them; had never been in the shop before.  Dear Richard, this is troubling me; I could not sleep all last night for thinking of it.  Do you suppose it is possible that Dolly and the boy were not drowned?  Your affectionate sister, Caroline.’  Now, did you ever read such a letter?” stormed the Major.  “If that Susan went home and said she’d seen St. Paul’s blown up, Caroline would believe it.  Who’s Susan, d’ye say?  Why, you’ve lost your memory, Philip.  Susan was the English maid we had with us in Calcutta.”

“It cannot possibly be true,” cried Mr. Hamlyn with quivering lips.

“True, no! of course it can’t be, hang it!  Or else what would you do?”

That might be logical though not satisfactory reasoning.  And Mr. Hamlyn thought of the woman said to be watching for him, and her pale gold hair.

“She was a cunning jade, if ever there was one, mark you, Philip Hamlyn; that false wife of yours and kin of mine; came of a cunning family on the mother’s side.  Put it that she was saved:  if it suited her to let us suppose she was drowned, why, she’d do it. I know Dolly.”

And poor Philip Hamlyn, assenting to the truth of this with all his heart, went out to face the battle that might be coming upon him, lacking the courage for it.

II.

The cold, clear afternoon air touching their healthy faces, and Jack Frost nipping their noses, raced Miss West and Kate Dancox up and down the hawthorn walk.  It had pleased that arbitrary young damsel, who was still very childish, to enter a protest against going beyond the grounds that fine winter’s day; she would be in the hawthorn walk, or nowhere; and she would run races there.  As Miss West gave in to her whims for peace’ sake in things not important, and as she was young enough herself not to dislike running, to the hawthorn walk they went.

Captain Monk was recovering rapidly.  His sudden illness had been caused by drinking some cold cider when some out-door exercise had made him dangerously hot.  The alarm and apprehension had now subsided; and Mrs. Hamlyn, arriving three days ago in answer to the hasty summons, was thinking of returning to London.

“You are cheating!” called out Kate, flying off at a tangent to cross her governess’s path.  “You’ve no right to get before me!”

“Gently,” corrected Miss West.  “My dear, we have run enough for to-day.”

“We haven’t, you ugly, cross old thing!  Aunt Eliza says you are ugly.  And—­”

The young lady’s amenities were cut short by finding herself suddenly lifted off her feet by Mr. Harry Carradyne, who had come behind them.

“Let me alone, Harry!  You are always coming where you are not wanted.  Aunt Eliza says so.”

A sudden light, as of mirth, illumined Harry Carradyne’s fresh, frank countenance.  “Aunt Eliza says all those things, does she?  Well, Miss Kate, she also says something else—­that you are now to go indoors.”