“For my sake, or yours?” he rejoined.

“For both.  Give me your promise.  You must if we are to remain friends.”

Her look and the fascination in her voice seemed to pull the very heart out of him.

“You are asking a cruelly hard thing of me,” he replied, with a tremor in his voice.  “I don’t understand—­”

“No, you don’t understand,” she interrupted quickly.  “It is enough to know that you have taken a girl’s foolish commission too seriously, so seriously as to run the risk of making things even worse than they threatened to be.  Now I ask you to leave well alone.”

“If it is well,” he said doubtfully.

“Of course.  Why should it not be?” she rejoined, in a not very convincing tone.  “Now I shall rely on you—­and I am sure it will not be in vain—­to respect my wishes.  Things seem to be in a horrible muddle,” she added with a rather dreary laugh, “but let’s hope they will right themselves before long.”

She rose, compelling him to rise too.  Something in the tone and manner of her last speech made him quite unwilling to end their conference, and desperately anxious to speak out everything that was in his mind and try to bring matters to a crisis.

“Don’t go for a moment,” he said as she began to move away towards the house.  “I have something to say to you.”

She turned quickly and faced him with a suggestion of displeasure in her eyes.  “What is it?” she said with a touch of impatience.

“Only this,” he answered quietly.  “Have you lost a brooch, Miss Morriston?”

At the question the blood left her cheeks as it had done a little while before; then surged back till her face was suffused.

“A brooch?  Yes; I have missed one.  Have you found it?” The words were spoken with a calmness which failed to hide the eagerness behind them.

“I think so,” he answered, taking out his letter-case.  “A pearl, set in diamonds mounted on a safety-pin?”

He opened the case and showed it pinned into the soft lining.

“Yes; that is mine,” she said; and for a moment or two by a strange attraction each looked into the other’s eyes.

Gifford bent his head over the case as he unfastened the brooch and took it out.

“Where—­where did you find it?” Something in the girl’s voice made him glad that he was not looking at her.

“In the garden,” he said.

“In the garden?” she repeated.  He was looking up now and saw the intense relief in her face.  “To-day?”

“No; last time I was up here.  I ought to have taken it to the house at once but—­but it was a temptation to me to keep it till I could give it back to you like this.  Do forgive me.”

It was plain she divined what he meant, but her cold manner came to the aid of her embarrassment.

“I am only too glad to have it again.  I am so glad you found it.”

“So am I,” he responded with a touch of fervour.  “I wish I could relieve your mind of everything else as easily.”