“I should love it, of course,” she said.  “But wouldn’t it be rather far out of our way?”

“I daresay the car won’t mind,” said Lord Percy.

They walked back to the house that a friend had lent for their three-months’ honeymoon.  It nestled in a hollow amongst trees, the long line of moors stretching above it.  They were well out of the beaten track.  Few tourists penetrated to their paradise.  Near the house was a glade with a miniature waterfall that filled the place with music.

“That waterfall makes for laziness,” Lord Percy was wont to declare, and many were the happy hours they had spent beside it.

They passed it by without lingering to-day, however, for both were feeling energetic.  Briskly they crossed the little lawn before the house, and entered by a French window.

“Better secure some refreshments before we go on the tramp,” suggested Lord Percy.  “I’ve got a thirst already.  Hullo!  What on earth—­”

He broke off in amazement.  A slight figure had risen up suddenly from a settee in a dark corner; and a woman’s face, wild-eyed and tragic, confronted them.

“Great Scott!  Who is it?” said Lord Percy Davenant.

And “Chris!” exclaimed Hilda, at the same moment.

As for Chris, she stood a second, staring at them; then:  “Trevor has turned me out, so I’ve come to you,” she said her white lips moving stiffly.  “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

With the words she stumbled forward, feeling vaguely out before her as though she saw not.  Hilda started towards her on the instant, caught her, folded warm arms about her, held her fast.

“My darling!” she said, and again, “My darling!”

But Chris heard not, nor saw, nor felt.  She had reached the end of her strength, and black darkness had closed down upon her agony, blotting out all things.  She sank senseless in her cousin’s embrace....

It was long before they brought her back, so long that Hilda became frightened and dispatched her husband in the motor for a doctor, wholly forgetting her brother’s expected visit in her anxiety.

Lord Percy ultimately returned with the local practitioner, whom he had dragged almost by force from the bedside of a patient ten miles away.  He, too, had forgotten Jack, but remembered him as he set down the doctor, and whirled away again in a cloud of dust, leaving him to announce himself.

Chris had by that time recovered consciousness, in response to Hilda’s strenuous efforts, but she had scarcely spoken a word.  She lay on the sofa in the drawing-room, cold from head to foot, and shivering spasmodically at intervals.  She drank the wine that Hilda brought her with shuddering docility; but it seemed to have no effect upon her.  It was as if the blood had frozen at her very heart.

“Get her to bed,” were the doctor’s orders, and he himself carried Chris up to Hilda’s room.

She was perfectly passive in their hands, but quite incapable of the smallest effort, and so painfully apathetic that Hilda grew more and more uneasy.  She had never imagined that her gay, light-hearted Chris could be thus.  It wrung her heart to see her.  She was like a dainty flower crushed into the dust of the highway.