“Getting on all right with him, Nora?”

“Why, of course,” said Nora with just a suggestion of irritation in her voice.

“What’s that boy doing all this time?” she asked, going over to the window and looking out.  “He is slow, isn’t he?”

But Marsh was not a man whom it was easy to side-track.

“It’s a great change for you, this, after the sort of life you’ve been used to.”

“I was rather hoping you’d have some letters for me,” said Nora from the window.  “I haven’t had a letter for a long time.”

As a matter of fact she had no reason to expect any, not having answered Miss Pringle’s last and having practically no other correspondent.  But the speech was a happy one, in that it created the desired diversion.

“There now!” said her brother with an air of comical consternation.  “I’ve got a head like a sieve.  Two came by the last mail.  I didn’t forward them, because I was coming myself.”

“You don’t mean to tell me you’ve forgotten them!”

“No; here they are.”

Nora took them with a show of eagerness.  “They don’t look very exciting,” she said, glancing at them.  “One’s from Agnes Pringle, the lady’s companion that I used to know at Tunbridge Wells, you remember.  And the other’s from Mr. Wynne.”

“Who’s he?”

“Oh, he was Miss Wickham’s solicitor.  He wrote to me once before to say he hoped I was getting on all right.  I don’t think I want to hear from people in England any more,” she said in a low voice, more to herself than to him, tossing the letters on the table.

“My dear, why do you say that?”

“It’s no good thinking of the past, is it?”

“Aren’t you going to read your letters?”

“Not now; I’ll read them when I’m alone.”

“Don’t mind me.”

“It’s silly of me; but letters from England always make me cry.”

“Nora!  Then you aren’t happy here.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Then why haven’t you written to me but once since you were married?”

“I hadn’t anything to say.  And then,” carrying the war into the enemy’s quarter, “I’d been practically turned out of your house.”

“I don’t know what to make of you.  Frank Taylor’s kind to you and all that sort of thing, isn’t he?”

“Very.  But don’t cross-examine me, there’s a dear.”

“When I asked you to come and make your home with me, I thought it mightn’t be long before you married.  But I didn’t expect you to marry one of the hired men.”

“Oh, my dear, please don’t worry about me.”  Nora was about at the end of her endurance.

“It’s all very fine to say that; but you’ve got no one in the world belonging to you except me.”

“Don’t, I tell you.”

“Nora!”

“Now listen.  We’ve never quarreled once since the first day I came here.  Now are you satisfied?”

She said it bravely, but it was with a feeling of unspeakable relief that she saw Reggie Hornby at the door.