He made as though to throw his cigarette away at her approach, but she
gestured a hasty negative.

"No, don't," she said. "I like it. It seems to make things a little more
natural. Uncle Pat"--with a wan smile--"was always smoking."

Her sombre eyes were shadowed and sad, and there was a pinched, drawn
look about her nostrils. Major Durward regarded her with a concerned
expression on his kindly face.

"You will miss him badly," he said.

"Yes, I shall miss him,"--simply. She returned his glance frankly. "You
are very like him, you know," she added suddenly.

It was true. The big, soldierly man beside her, with his jolly blue
eyes, grey hair, and short-clipped military moustache, bore a striking
resemblance to the Patrick Lovell of ten years ago, before ill-health
had laid its finger upon him, and during the difficult days that
succeeded her uncle's death Sara had unconsciously found a strange kind
of comfort in the likeness. She had dreaded inexpressibly the advent of
the future owner of Barrow, but, when he had arrived, his resemblance
to his dead cousin, and a certain similarity of gesture and of voice,
common enough in families, had at once established a sense of
kinship, which had deepened with her recognition of Durward's genuine
kind-heartedness and solicitude for her comfort.

He had immediately assumed control of affairs, taking all the inevitable
detail of arrangement off her shoulders, yet deferring to her as though