that the would be pleased to commence her duties at the time suggested.  The question of where and how she was to lodge her baby at Melkbridge, and, at the same time, avoid all possible risk of its identity being discovered, she left for future consideration.  She was coming back from posting the letter, when she was overtaken by Windebank, who was driving a superb motor car.  He pulled up by the kerb of the pavement on which she was walking.

“Good morning,” he cried cheerily.  “I was coming to take you out.”

“Shopping?” she asked.

“To have a day in the country.  Jump in and we’ll drive back for the youngster.”

“It’s very kind of you, but—–­”

“There are no ‘buts.’  I insist.”

“I really mustn’t go,” said Mavis, thinking longingly of the peace of the country.

“But you must.  Remember you’ve someone else to think of besides yourself.”

“You?”

“The youngster.  A change to country air would do him no end of good.”

“Do you really think it would?” asked Mavis, hesitating before accepting his offer.

“Think!  I know.  If you don’t want to come, it’s your duty to sacrifice yourself for the boy’s health.”

This decided Mavis.  Less than an hour later, they were driving in the cool of Surrey lanes, where the sweet air and the novelty of the motion brought colour to Mavis’s cheeks.

They lunched at a wayside inn, to sit, when the simple meal was over, in the garden where the air was musical with bees.

“This is peace,” exclaimed Mavis, who was entranced with the change from dirty, mean Pimlico.

“As your life should always be, little Mavis.”

“It is going to be.”

“But what are you going to do till this marriage comes off?”

Mavis told him how it was arranged that she was soon to commence work at Melkbridge.  Much to her surprise and considerably to her mind’s disquiet, Windebank hotly attempted to dissuade her from this course.  He urged a variety of reasons, the chief of which was the risk she ran of the fact of her motherhood being discovered.  But he might as well have talked to Jill, who accompanied the party.  Mavis’s mind was made up.  The obstacles he sought to put in her way, if anything, strengthened her determination.  One concession, however, he wrung from her—­this, that if ever she were in trouble she would not hesitate to seek his aid.  On the return home in the cool of the evening, Windebank asked if he could secure her better accommodation than where she now lived until she left for Wiltshire.  Mavis would not hear of it, till Windebank pointed out that her child’s health might be permanently injured by further residence in unwholesome Halverton