"I'll write that we'll go to-morrow, dear," John said.

"No, go to-day. I should be glad, Johnny. Go to-day and take Ellice, I
am so much better alone; and by the time you come home perhaps I shall
have been able to sleep it off."

So Johnny Everard drove Ellice over to Starden that afternoon.

Helen Everard received them in the drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny
Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though
she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest. It was an
interesting face, such a face as one does not ordinarily see.

"One day, if she lives, she will be a beautiful woman," Helen thought.
"To-day she is a gawky, passionate, ill-disciplined child; and I am
afraid, terribly afraid, she is very much in love with that great,
cheery, good-looking nephew of mine."

"Come," she said, "Joan is in the garden. I promised that when you came
I would take you to her. You have heard about her of course?" Helen
added to John.

"Only a little, that she is an heiress, and has come into Starden."

"She was very poor, poor child, and I think she had a hard and bitter
time of it. Then the wheel of fortune took a turn. Her uncle died, and
left her Starden and a great deal of money. So here she is."

Helen felt a hand grip her arm, and turned to look down into a thin
face, in which burned a pair of passionate eyes.