"And one that serves to confirm your opinion that a girl does well
to accept the husband who is chosen for her, Miss Locke?" asked
Peters abruptly, as he glanced at his watch and rose to his feet.

Gillian joined in the general move.

"I think it is--safer," she said, as she had said before, and
stooped to rouse the sleeping poodle.




CHAPTER V


Miss Craven was sitting alone in the library at the Towers. She had
been reading, but the book had failed to hold her attention and lay
unheeded on her lap while she was plunged in a profound reverie.

She sat very still, her usually serene face clouded, and once or twice a
heavy sigh escaped her.

The short November day was drawing in and though still early afternoon
it was already growing dark. The declining light was more noticeable in
the library than elsewhere in the house--a sombre room once the morning
sun had passed; long and narrow and panelled in oak to a height of about
twelve feet, above which ran a gallery reached by a hammered iron
stairway, it housed a collection of calf and vellum bound books which
clothed the walls from the floor of the gallery to within a few feet of