Treveryan's servants had formed their own conclusions with regard to Láli Sahib, as they called him, and from this cause or some other it soon became known to Guy that the thing was in the air. Dale, when questioned by the ladies, replied steadily that he knew for a fact that Guy and Helen were not engaged; and Guy himself tried to deceive his friends by casual references to the Treveryans, but it would not do. He felt that Helen and he were suspects, and Helen felt it too. Altogether, the position was trying.

There was, however, for both of them the consolation of the post. Wherever the Commissioner Sahib might go his mail followed him closely. The horsemen who cantered along the soft country roads to the cluster of white tents under the trees carried in their locked canvas bags many a letter from Guy to Helen. She used to sit and answer them in her tent, while the soft breeze played through the open doorways, and the little bronze-green fly-catchers glittered in the sunlit air outside, and the kingfishers hung quivering over the blue waterpools. Guy's letters were the more cleverly written-full of untrained poetry and passion, and touching enough at times in their youthful chivalrous enthusiasm. Hers were quieter and shorter; indeed, he felt and complained at times that they seemed curt and cold; but they were very sweet letters nevertheless. She wondered at his power of words, and humbly apologised for her own want of it; but now and then, in her simple language, without exaggeration and without effort, she wrote some little perfect womanly thing which brought the tears to his eyes, and made him conscious of his own inferiority. 'My darling,' he once answered ber, 'never say again that your letters are not worth having, or that you wish you could write like me. Your letters are far better than mine. They are to mine what a violet is to a passionflower. It is not, I hope, that my love is less true than yours. I do not believe that. But all your thoughts are so exquisitely pure and good that your words cannot help being beautiful. The thought shines through them. If ever other eyes should see our letters, which God forbid, it will not be yours that suffer by the comparison.'

And he was right. He was beginning to learn the lesson which is vouchsafed to so many of us. There was being revealed to him a purity of spirit, a tenderness of perception and feeling, of which he had never before imagined the possibility. He was gazing into the wonderful depths of a woman's heart.

CHAPTER XVII

THE NEWS ARRIVES AT WRENTHAM

It was a fine spring morning when Guy's letters reached Wrentham. The winter was past; the rain was over and gone; the flowers appeared on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds was come. There were some crocuses and violets in the garden, and the golden burnished stars of the celandine were beginning to glitter in the hedgerows. One or two primroses had been seen. Evelyn had found a blackbird's nest in a thornbush as yet uncovered by leaves; and in the home wood the rooks were very busy indeed. Below them, in the little corner where a woodcock sometimes lay, the daffodils were fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The air was cold, but clear and

sunny. Life was stirring in it.

The postman generally arrived at the hall during breakfast, and as it was the day for the Indian mail, the Langleys were on the lookout for a letter from Guy. Old Pantling, the butler, knew Guy's hand very well, and his decorous manner was a trifle more interested than usual as he brought the post in to Lady Mary. 'Dear me,' she said, as she looked through it,' we are in luck to-day. There are two from Guy. I wonder what makes him write to us both.'

There was a letter for Barbara from some one else, but both the girls turned to their mother to hear the news from India. Pantling cut some wafery slices from the ham on the sideboard, and deliberately offered them to each member of the family in succession. He was rewarded by seeing Lady Mary lay down her letter with a face like a thundercloud, and by hearing his master, who had also opened his, give vent to a smothered whistle. The girls looked up inquiringly, and Evelyn said, 'What is the news,

mamma? Is anything the matter?' Then the discreet Pantling saw that he was not wanted, and went away.

Charles Langley finished his letter, and looked at his wife with a face of doubt which rapidly changed to one of dismay. 'We must talk this over after breakfast,' Lady Mary said sternly, in answer to his look, and then she turned to the girls. 'Guy is quite well, but he has got into a foolish scrape; nothing serious.'

The girls saw that for the present they were not meant to know more, and they asked no questions. Lady Mary read her other letters, and spoke about them to her husband as if nothing had happened. Then Charles Langley walked off as usual, Lady Mary saying she would come to his study in a few minutes.

After she had given some orders to the housekeeper, which she did in a perfectly calm and level manner, though not very pleasantly, she walked into her husband's room. He was leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and one heel hooked over the fender, but as she entered he stood to attention, and moved to one side of the chair which he had put near the fire for her. She came up to him with a very hard-set face, and remained standing. 'This is a nice business,' she said, with a tinge of contempt in her voice.

'Yes; what on earth are we to do?'

'Of course it must be stopped at once. I thought Guy had

more sense.'

'Yes, young ass; but how are we to manage it?'

Lady Mary was inclined even then to resent any depreciation of Guy, and she answered rather sharply and inconsequently: 'He writes to you about money matters, and of course you must tell him plainly that you won't allow it. I don't suppose it is his fault. They have taken him in somehow.'

Charles Langley looked rather helpless. 'I will write of course, but . . . aren't you going to write too? I really don't quite know what to say. You see, he is his own master after all. Supposing he were to insist on taking his own line?'

'Nonsense, Charles. He is a great deal too sensible, if the thing is put plainly to him. Just write and tell him that you cannot approve of the marriage. Say that you are giving him already as much as you can afford, and that, under the circumstances, he must see how impossible it would be for him to marry. It is easy enough. I will write a few lines too, and make it quite clear that the thing must be given up. I hope you see now who was right about his exchanging from his regiment.'

After a few words more Lady Mary went off to her own room and sat down to write. Before she began she thought the matter over quietly, and, considering all things, her letter was judicious enough. She did not expect any serious resistance on Guy's part. She was unused to opposition, and did not doubt that in this matter, as in other matters, she would get her own way. She was able, therefore, to keep her temper under control. As to the expediency and propriety of stopping the marriage, she never hesitated for a moment. Such a thing would be Guy's ruin. Altogether, she faced the question in a resolute but temperate frame of mind. It was annoying of course; but boys would be boys, and, after all, a little firmness would put an end to it all. There was no need to write harshly. It would hurt poor Guy, and make matters harder for him. The best way would be to appeal to his affection and common sense. Before lunch-time the letter was ready.

MY DEAREST GUY—We received this morning your letters of the -th February, and I don't think you will be surprised to learn that they have caused us much distress. You are quite right in feeling sure of my love and sympathy, for you would always have that under any circumstances; but, my own boy, how can I tell you I approve of what you have done? I do not wish to say a word against Miss Treveryan, who is no doubt everything you think her; but you know that as it is you have not more than enough to live upon in your regiment. How are you to support a wife and family as well? Your father can allow you no more than he does already, as he will tell you. Where is the money to come from? You say Colonel Treveryan might allow his daughter something; but, even supposing he did so, this is only a temporary help. In case of his death or your father's, you would be in dreadful difficulties. I feel certain that, if you will think it over quietly, you will see that such a mar riage is impossible. I daresay you thought we could afford to do more for you, but indeed we cannot. We are not rich, and we have very heavy expenses. Don't think me unkind, my boy. If I believed that this marriage could be for your happiness, far from hindering it, I would do everything in my power to bring it about. Knowing as I do that it could only end in misery, I am obliged, even at the risk of your thinking me hard and cruel, to tell you that I can never consent to it. Do take leave and come home to us for a few months. How I wish you had never gone to that dreadful country; but it is too late to think of that. Come back to us now, for a time at all events, if you will not exchange to a regiment in England, as I asked you to do before. When you have seen me, you will under.

stand it all quite clearly. Go straight to Colonel Aylmer, and say it is very important for you to go at once, and that you must do so. In the meantime I need not say that I feel for you most deeply, for I know too well how painful such a thing must be to you; but there is no help for it, and I am sure you will be brave and sensible.Ever your loving MOTHER.

Charles Langley's letter was shorter. He had tried to remember and reproduce his wife's words.

letter, and I am sorry to I am not able to approve

MY DEAR GUY-I have received your say I cannot answer it as you would like. your engagement. I already allow you as much as I can afford to do, and in the circumstances you must see how impossible it would be for you to marry. I am afraid you will be disappointed, but I don't know what else to say.—I remain your affectionate father, CHARLES LANGLEY.

'That is exactly what she said,' he thought, when he had read it over; but it doesn't read very well, and I don't see that it tells him what he wants to know. I wonder what the girl is like.' And there came over him a serious doubt whether they were acting altogether kindly and wisely in cutting the matter short without further inquiry. Guy would have at least ten thousand pounds at his death, and he had five or six now, and evidently she would have something. At a pinch too they could be helped. If she was a nice girl, and the boy really wanted to marry her, it might not be such a bad thing after all. Every one cannot be a millionaire, and in the service one can live pretty cheap if one chooses.

Lady Mary had no such doubts. She felt that she was acting solely in Guy's interests, and that for his good it was her duty to deny him this thing, just as she used to deny him some little indulgence in his childhood. It never occurred to her that she never wrong. Her mission in life

might be wrong. She was was to keep others right.

Lady Mary was a loving mother, with a very high idea of Guy's value. He was a boy of whom any mother might have been proud, and to her eyes his price was above rubies. She overestimated his talents, and his good looks, and all belonging to him. Moreover, she firmly believed in her heart that all connected with herself were in some way a peculiar people. Though her grandfather was merely a successful lawyer, and her husband's ancestors were country squires descended from a success