"What's the matter with you, my good fellow, is," Hugh said to himself,
as he walked back to the hotel that night, "you're a fickle man; you
don't know your own mind. A week ago you were dreaming of Marjorie; you
considered blue eyes the most beautiful thing in the world. You would
not have listened to the claims of eyes of any other colour, and
now--Bless her dear little heart, she'll be happy as the day is long
with Tom Arundel, with his nice fair hair parted down the middle, and
her pretty scented notepaper. Of course she'll be happy. She would have
been miserable at Hurst Dormer, and so should I have been; seeing her
miserable, I should have been miserable myself. But I shall go back to
Hurst Dormer to-morrow and start on that renovation work. It will give
me something to occupy my time and attention."

That night, much to his surprise, Hugh found he could not sleep.

"It's the strange bed," he said. "It's the noise of the London streets."
Sleeplessness had never troubled him before, but to-night he rolled and
tossed from side to side, and then at last he sat bolt upright in the
bed.

"Good Lord!" he said. "Good Lord, it can't be!" He stared into the thick
darkness and saw an oval face, crowned by waving brown hair, that
glinted gold in the highlights. He saw a sweet, womanly, tender, smiling
mouth and a pair of grey eyes that seemed to burn into his own.

"It can't be!" he said again. And yet it was!