“Certainly,” I answered.  “Your father is anxious, I believe, about Lord Blenavon.  It occurred to me that he perhaps hoped to get news of him from Mrs. Smith-Lessing.  At any rate he sent me for her.”

She seemed to me to be trembling a little.  Her eyes sought mine almost pathetically.  She was afraid of something.  In the half-lights she appeared to me then so frail and girlish that a great wave of tenderness swept in upon me.  I longed to take her into my arms—­even to hold her hands and try to comfort her.  Surely to do these things was the privilege of the man who loved her.  And I loved her—­loved her so that the pain and joy of it were woven together like live things in my heart, fighting always against the grim silence which lay like a seal upon my lips.  But there were moments when I was sorely tried, and this was one of them.  My eyes fell from hers.  I dared not look her in the face.

“Is this—­all?” she asked falteringly.

“It is all that I know,” I answered.

Then we were silent.  With a little sigh she sank down in the corner of a high-backed easy chair.  It seemed to me that she was thinner, that something of the delicate childishness of her appearance had passed away since her coming to London.  I knew that she was in trouble, and I dared not ask her the cause of it.

“I wish that we were going back to Braster to-morrow,” she said suddenly.  “Everything and everybody is different here.  You seem to spend most of your time trying to avoid me, and—­Colonel Ray, I do not know what is the matter with him, but he has become like a walking tragedy.”

“I have not tried to avoid you,” I said.  “I—­”

Then I stopped short.  Her eyes were fixed upon mine and the lie stuck in my throat.  I went on desperately.

“I think,” I said, “that if you fancy Colonel Ray is different you should ask him about it.”

She shook her head dejectedly.

“I cannot,” she said.  “Sometimes I am frightened of Colonel Ray.  It is like that just now.”

“But you should try and get over it,” I said gently.  “He has strange moods, but you should always remember that he is the man whom you are going to marry.  There ought to be every confidence between you, and I know—­yes, I know that he is very fond of you.”

She leaned a little forward.  Her hair was a little dishevelled, her face was almost haggard.  Her under lip was quivering like a child’s.

“I am afraid of him,” she sobbed out suddenly.  “I am afraid of him, and I have promised to marry him.  Can’t somebody—­help me?”

Her head fell suddenly forward and was buried in her hands.  Her whole frame shook with convulsive weeping, and then suddenly a little white hand shot out towards me.  She did not look up, but the hand was there, timid, yet inviting.  I dropped on my knee by her side, and I held it in mine.

“Dear Lady Angela,” I murmured.  “You must not give way like this, you must not!  Ray is not used to women, and you are very young.  But he loves you, I know that he loves you.”