a long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the
new big dining-room--to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb,
beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her
cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth
that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later
with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that
cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued
blush upon him.

Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense
that things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around
the table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still
flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything,
was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud
Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of
her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving
knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought, of
having been upset and shaken. The young man was still fumbling himself
for light upon these mysteries, when they were dispelled by a shock
that for the moment stunned him.

Mr Pennycuick called for a certain brand of wine long famous at his
board. When it came, and the bottles were being sent round, he stood
up, with a trembling goblet in his hand. The eyes round the table
dropped--all but Guthrie's, which stared at the old man.

"There's no time like the present," began the host, "if a thing has to
be done." He repeated this strange and embarrassing introductory
remark, and then spent some time in clearing his throat and blowing his
nose, and trying to wipe up the wine he was shaking over. When the