“Is it peace, then?”

But the softening spell of the music was broken, and Diana felt her resentment against him rise up anew.

Silently she withdrew her hand, refusing him an answer, defying him with a courage born of the near neighbourhood of the Rector and Joan, and a few minutes later the hum of his motor could be heard as it sped away down the drive.

Diana lay long awake that night, her thoughts centred round the man who had come so strangely into her life.  It was as though he had been forced thither by a resistless fate which there was no eluding—­for, on his own confession, he had deliberately sought to avoid meeting her again.

His whole attitude was utterly incomprehensible—­a study of violently opposing contrasts.  Diana felt bruised and shaken by the fierce contradictions of his moods, the temperamental heat and ice which he had meted out to her.  It seemed as if he were fighting against the attraction she had for him, prepared to contest every inch of ground—­discounting each look and word wrung from him in some moment of emotion by the mocking raillery with which he followed it up.

More than once he had hinted at some barrier, spoken of a shadow that dogged his steps, as if complete freedom of action were denied him.  Could it be—­was it conceivable, that he was already married?  And at the thought Diana hid hot cheeks against her pillow, living over again that moment in the car—­that moment which had suddenly called into being emotions before whose overmastering possibilities she trembled.

At length, mentally and physically weary, she dropped into an uneasy slumber, vaguely wondering what the morrow would bring forth.

It brought the unexpected news that the occupants of Red Gables had suddenly left for London by the morning train.

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. LAWRENCE’S HOSPITALITY

“An Officer’s Widow offers hospitality to students and professional women.  Excellent cuisine; man-servant; moderate terms.  Apply:  Mrs. L., 24 Brutton Square, N.W.”

So ran the advertisement which Mrs. Lawrence periodically inserted in one of the leading London dailies.  She was well-pleased with the wording of it, considering that it combined both veracity and attractiveness—­two things which do not invariably run smoothly in conjunction with each other.

The opening phrase had reference to the fact that her husband, the defunct major, had been an army doctor, and the word hospitality pleasantly suggested the idea of a home from home, whilst the afterthought conveyed by the moderate terms delicately indicated that the hospitality was not entirely of a gratuitous nature.  The man-servant, on closer inspection, resolved himself into a French-Swiss waiter, whose agility and condition were such that he could negotiate the whole ninety stairs of the house, three at a time, without once pausing for breath till he reached the top.