“Oh, Hugh, it is so good to see you again.”

He kissed her.  What else could he do?  And then, holding her hand and drawing it through his arm, he led her into the house.  He rang the bell for tea, for it was tea-time when she came.

“You are going to have a good tea first, then you are going to tell me all your troubles, and we are going to put them all straight and right.  And then—­then, Marjorie, you are going to smile as you used to.”

A faint smile came to her lips, her eyes were on his face.  “Oh, Hugh, if—­if you knew how—­how good it is to see you again and hear you speak to me.”

He put his hand on her shoulders.

“It is always good to me to see you,” he said softly.  “You’re one of the best things in my world, Marjorie, little maid.”

She bent her head, so that her soft cheek touched his hand, and what man could draw his hand away from that caress?  Not Hugh Alston.

And now came Phipps with the tea, which he arranged on the small table and retired.

“It’s all right between them two,” he announced in the kitchen a little later.  “She’ll be missus here after all, I’ll lay ten to one.”

“Law bless and save us!” said cook.  “I thought it was off, and she was going to marry young Mr. Arundel.”

Ordinarily, Marjorie had the sensible appetite of a young country girl.  To-day she ate nothing.  She sipped her tea, and looked with great soulful, miserable eyes at Hugh.

“And now, little girl, come, tell me.”

“Oh, Hugh, not now.  It is so difficult, almost impossible to tell you.  I wrote that letter days and days before I posted it, and then I made up my mind all of a sudden to post it, and regretted it the moment after.”

“Why?”

She shook her head.

“There is something wrong between you and Tom?  Tell me, girlie!”

She was silent for a moment.  “There is—­everything wrong between Tom and—­and me.  But it is my—­my fault, not his.  Oh, Hugh, it is all my fault!”

“How?”

“I—­I don’t love him!” the girl gasped.

“Eh?” Hugh started.  He sat back and stared at her.  “Why—­you—­I—­I thought—­”

“So did I!” she cried, bursting into tears, “but I was wrong—­wrong—­all wrong.  I didn’t understand!” Her breast was heaving, there were sobs in her throat, sobs she fought and struggled against.

The dawn of understanding came to him.  He believed he saw.  She had fancied herself in love with Tom, and now she knew she was not—­how did she know?  For the simple reason that she found she was in love with someone else.  Now who on earth could it be? he wondered.

“Won’t you tell me all about it, dear?”

“I—­I can’t.  Don’t ask me—­I ought not to have written, I ought not to have come.  I wish—­I wish I had not.  It is my fault, not Tom’s; he is good and kind and—­and patient with me, and I know I am unkind and cross to him, and I feel ashamed of myself!”