So Hugh, though he had little understanding of women, felt yet that things were not as they should be and as Marjorie of course could not possibly be to blame, it must be Tom Arundel, and to Tom he addressed himself forcibly.

Tom listened resentfully.  “Look here, Alston, I don’t know what the lay is,” he said.  “I don’t know what’s the matter.  I am not conscious of having offended her.  If I have, I am sorry—­why goo-law, I worship the ground the little thing treads on!”

And Hugh, looking Tom straight in the eyes, knew that he was speaking the truth.

“Good!” he said.  “I’m glad to hear it, and she’s worth it!”

“And—­and it hurts me, by George it does, Alston,” Tom said, “the way she cuts up rough with me.  And now you go for me bald-headed, as if I’d behaved like a pig to her.  Why goo-law, man, I’d lie down and let her jump on me.  I’d go and drown myself if it would cause her any—­any amusement.”

There was a distinct suggestion of tears in the boy’s eyes, and Hugh turned hastily away.

“Marjorie dear,” he was saying a while later, “what’s wrong?  Tell me all about it.  Tell your old friend Hugh, and see if he can put things right.”

“There is nothing—­nothing wrong, Hugh!” Marjorie gasped.  “Nothing!  Nothing in the world!” And she belied her statement by suddenly sobbing and hiding her face against his shoulder.

“There, there—­there!” he said, feeling as awkward as a man must feel when a woman cries to him.  He patted her shoulder with the uncomfortable feeling that he was behaving like an idiot.

“It—­it is nothing!” she gasped.  “Hugh, it is really nothing!”

“Tom’s a good lad, one of the best—­clean through and through!”

“Yes, I know he is, and—­and oh, I do know it, Hugh, and it isn’t Tom’s fault!”

“Your aunt’s been worrying you?”

“No, it is not that—­oh, it is nothing, nothing in the world.  It is only that I am a—­a—­little fool, an ungrateful, silly, little fool!”

And Hugh was frankly puzzled.

“You’re going to be as happy as the day is long, little girl,” he said.  “Tom loves you, worships the ground you walk on; I think you’re going to be the happiest girl alive.  Dry your tears, dear, and smile as you used to in the old days!” He stooped over her and pressed a kiss on her shining hair; and there came to her a mad, passionate longing to lift her arms and clasp them about his neck and confess all, confess her stupidity and her blindness and her folly.

“It is you—­you are the man I love.  It is you I want—­you all the time!” She longed to say it, but did not, and Hugh Alston never knew.

Hurst Dormer looked empty, and seemed silent and dull after Cornbridge.  No place was dull and certainly no place was silent where Lady Linden was, and coming back to Hurst Dormer, Hugh felt as if he was then entering into a desert of solitude and silence.