With all this on his mind Mr. Chalk made but a poor breakfast, and his appetite was not improved by his wife’s enthusiastic remarks concerning the voyage.  Breakfast over, she dispatched a note to Mrs. Stobell by the housemaid, with instructions to wait for a reply.  Altogether six notes passed during the morning, and Mr. Chalk, who hazarded a fair notion as to their contents, became correspondingly gloomy.

“We’re to go up there at five,” said his wife, after reading the last note.  “Mr. Stobell will be at tea at that time, and we’re to drop in as though by accident.”

“What for?” inquired Mr. Chalk, affecting surprise.  “Go up where?”

“To talk to Mr. Stobell,” said his wife, grimly.  “Fancy, poor Mrs. Stobell says that she is sure he won’t let her come.  I wish he was my husband, that’s all.”

Mr. Chalk muttered something about “doing a little gardening.”

“You can do that another time,” said Mrs. Chalk, coldly.  “I’ve noticed you’ve been very fond of gardening lately.”

The allusion was too indirect to contest, but Mr. Chalk reddened despite himself, and his wife, after regarding his confusion with a questioning eye, left him to his own devices and his conscience.

Mr. Stobell and his wife had just sat down to tea when they arrived, and Mrs. Stobell, rising from behind a huge tea-pot, gave a little cry of surprise as her friend entered the room, and kissed her affectionately.

[Illustration:  “Mrs. Stobell.”]

“Well, who would have thought of seeing you?” she cried.  “Sit down.”

Mrs. Chalk sat down at the large table opposite Mr. Stobell; Mr. Chalk, without glancing in his wife’s direction, seated himself by that gentleman’s side.

“Well, weren’t you surprised?” inquired Mrs. Chalk, loudly, as her hostess passed her a cup of tea.

“Surprised?” said Mrs. Stobell, curiously.

“Why, hasn’t Mr. Stobell told you?” exclaimed Mrs. Chalk.

“Told me?” repeated Mrs. Stobell, glancing indignantly at the wide-open eyes of Mr. Chalk.  “Told me what?”

It was now Mrs. Chalk’s turn to appear surprised, and she did it so well that Mr. Chalk choked in his tea-cup.  “About the yachting trip,” she said, with a glance at her husband that made his choking take on a ventriloquial effect of distance.

“He—­he didn’t say anything to me about it,” said Mrs. Stobell, timidly.

She glanced at her husband, but Mr. Stobell, taking an enormous bite out of a slice of bread and butter, made no sign.

“It’ll do you a world of good,” said Mrs. Chalk, affectionately.  “It’ll put a little colour in your cheeks.”

Mrs. Stobell flushed.  She was a faded little woman; faded eyes, faded hair, faded cheeks.  It was even whispered that her love for Mr. Stobell was beginning to fade.

“And I don’t suppose you’ll mind the seasickness after you get used to it,” said the considerate Mr. Chalk, “and the storms, and the cyclones, and fogs, and collisions, and all that sort of thing.”