hotel, and they seem to think you have nothing in the world to do but to amuse them. I am not going to have you wasting your time upon him, and then sitting up half the night working to make up for it.'

'Don't, Nell; I don't like it. It is a nuisance, of course; but you must be civil to a man in your own house, and they don't understand. I daresay they think we are paid for it; and they have not the least idea what the work is in India.’

'I expect they understand well enough, but they don't care. So long as they get all they want, it does not matter to them what trouble it costs. One never realises how detestable Englishmen can be till one sees them travelling.'

'Nell, Nell, you really are not fair. Some of them are capital fellows. Who could have been nicer than young Wenley

last year?'

6 Yes. I liked him; but very few are like that.'

'Well, a good many of them do seem to leave their manners in the Suez Canal; but, after all, it is natural enough. They feel that they are in a strange country where nobody knows them, and so they don't much care what they do. I remember having that feeling myself when I first came out. You must settle

down into your place and get to know people round you before you care for their opinion.'

'I daresay, father; but I am certain you always behaved like a gentleman. They don't behave like gentlemen, many of them. There's no excuse for that.'

Colonel Treveryan put his hand on his daughter's: Never mind, Nell. Let's talk of something pleasanter than T. G.'s. How did Sultan go this evening?'

Helen shook off her little trouble with an effort, and the two were soon chatting happily about other matters.

By seven o'clock next morning Colonel Treveryan had finished his early tea and was at his work. Helen came out a couple of hours later, looking as fresh and bright as if she had never left England. She had not yet fallen into the bad Indian habit of early rising, which is responsible for more illness than anything else in the country.

She and her father sat down to breakfast, and finished it alone. A servant was sent to inquire whether their visitor would have anything in his room, but the answer was that he would come out soon. It was past eleven before he appeared, and Colonel Treveryan, after waiting some little time, had gone to

his office. Helen had finished her morning interview with the servants, had taken some breakfast to Jacko the monkey and was looking after her birds, when Mr. Pitt Wright walked out of his rooms into the hall. Her hands were full, but she smiled a bright good morning to him. She had reproached herself while she was dressing for her rather hasty condemnation of the night before, and had determined to make things as pleasant as she could. 'I hope you are rested,' she said. 'Did you sleep well?' 'No. I can't say I did. Some confounded dogs were howling all night and kept me awake.'

'I am very sorry. The pariah dogs do make a noise sometimes at night, and it worries one till one gets accustomed to it. You must have a quiet day. Now you must want your breakfast.'

She took him into the dining-room and poured out his tea for him, and sat with him while he ate his meal. He seemed to enjoy it, and talked agreeably enough, in a rather irritating free-and-easy way, until it was over. When he had done, he took out his cigarette-case. Helen got up. 'I will leave you to have your cigarette,' she said. 'My father said I was to tell you that you are to order the carriage when you want it; and if you want to speak to him about anything, I am to let him know.' Oh, don't go. What is your father doing?'

'He is in his office-room trying cases, I think. He is dreadfully hard-worked always.'

Mr. Pitt Wright was examining his cigarette, which had got a little flattened, and gently coaxing it into shape. 'Is he, really?' he said carelessly. 'I thought he was a great swell, and had lots of fellows to devil for him. Look here, don't you go. I know you've nothing to do, anyhow. Come and talk to Ime while I have a smoke. You won't have one yourself?'

He had remained seated when she rose, and his manner was very much the manner of our golden youth towards a barmaid. Helen's head went up, and her temper began to get the better of her; but she tried not to show it. 'I can't stop now,' she said, and walked out of the room. Her guest looked at her and laughed in a rather embarrassed way.

if

'Don't be cross. Please come back. I shall be miserable you don't. It's very rude to leave me all alone.'

Helen returned to her birds, but the brightness had gone out of her face. She stood in the hall for a second, and a hot flush rose over her cheek and neck. 'If it were not for father,' she

thought to herself, 'how I should love to have it out with him.' Then she pulled herself up. 'How silly I am to be troubled by it. I won't let him worry me any more. But he is not a gentle

man.'

For the next week Helen succeeded in avoiding any unpleasantness, but Pitt Wright was a great nuisance. He had nothing on earth to do apparently and took no interest in anything, so that it was hard to amuse him. Colonel Treveryan took him out snipe-shooting one day, and he shot rather well; but he disliked getting his feet wet, and came to the conclusion that snipe-shooting was not good enough. Then the hospitable Colonel, with a pang of regret, mounted him for a day's pigsticking. He did not ride badly, but he got flurried and very nearly came to grief over a jinking boar, and then he laid the blame on Remus. The horse funked, he said, and put him off. Funked! Remus, who loved the sport, and would have carried his master straight at the biggest pair of tushes that ever gleamed. On other days Pitt Wright loafed about the house smoking, or drove over to cantonments. He had struck up an acquaintance with Denham, and would sometimes go and lunch or dine with him, ordering a horse or a carriage and keeping it out for any length of time without the smallest consideration for man or beast. Sometimes he went to the Club in the afternoon for a rubber, but not often; and as he did not play tennis he did not care to go in the evening, and Colonel Treveryan gave up playing. He would not call on any one in the Civil station; not even on the Lees, though Lee had taken a good deal of trouble in helping him to see some sport, and every one was ready to be hospitable. 'What is the use,' he said, 'of calling on a lot of people I shall never see again, and never want to?' Altogether Helen fairly longed to see the last of him. After the first day he was perhaps a little more careful in his manner towards her, but it was always more familiar than she liked.

So things went on for three weeks, and Pitt Wright had shown no sign of going. Then one morning at breakfast came a letter to say that his shooting-party had been put off, and was not to begin until the 1st of February. 'Well, I'm hanged,' he said, reading his letter with a face of disgust. 'That is too bad. I have been waiting for those fellows a month already, and now I shall have to kick my heels for another fortnight, just because some silly old Colonel won't give some of them leave. It doesn't seem to occur to them that my time is limited. I must get away

by the middle of February. I expect it will be beastly hot in the Red Sea even then. I shall write to the Viceroy's people and have them stirred up. Confound them !'

Helen sat looking at the table, with her mouth set. Colonel Treveryan answered quietly: 'It is disappointing, but I expect they can't help it, and you will have time enough. I daresay the shooting will be all the better for being a bit later. I wish we could find something for you to do meanwhile.'

Pitt Wright dimly recognised that he had not been very gracious. 'Oh, it isn't that,' he said; ‘I am perfectly comfortable here, and I'm much obliged to you for putting me up. Only, I don't like staying for ever, you know.'

'My dear fellow, please don't think of that. We are very glad to keep you as long as you like to stay.'

So the unbidden guest remained at Syntia, hardly concealing his weariness and impatience to be gone.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DIE IS CAST

DURING all this time Guy Langley had seen much less of Helen, and he was concerned at the deprivation. It troubled him greatly when she failed to appear at the tennis-ground in the evenings. It troubled him still more to know that she was driving or riding with Pitt Wright, even though her father was with them. He would have been pleased if he had known how she disliked the duty; and he might have guessed it from her evident pleasure when at times she did break away; but a man in love is never reasonable. The net result was that he saw less of her, and knew she was constantly with some one else. It seemed odd to him that Pitt Wright should stay so long except for one reason. Guy was getting sore and jealous. It was not surprising. Helen controlled her dislike bravely, for her father's sake, and she said nothing to others against her guest. They seemed to be on the best of terms.

One Saturday night before dinner, when Guy walked into the anteroom of the mess rather early, intending to spend a quarter of an hour in reading a magazine article which he had begun, he found Pitt Wright sitting near the fireplace. He had come to dine with Denham, who was also there. As Guy came in, the two were laughing, and he heard Denham say: 'You had better bolt before it is too late. She is a determined young woman.' The conversation was interrupted by Guy's entrance, and in a few minutes several other men came in; but during dinner Guy could not get those words out of his head. He spoke little, and ate less, and looked so glum that St. Orme, who was sitting next him, attacked him on the subject.

'What the devil is the matter with you?' St. Orme asked in his fine, slow, rolling voice, after several attempts had failed. 'You look as if you were going to be shot, or married, or some