admitted a loyalty due to the dead, she was also acutely conscious
of a loyalty due to the living. A few minutes before when Miss
Craven had, somewhat shamefacedly, owned to a love of the family
to which they belonged she had but faintly expressed her
passionate attachment thereto. Pride of race was hers to an
unusual degree. All that was best and noblest she craved for the
clan. And Barry was the last of the Cravens. Her brother had
failed her and dragged her high ideals in the dust. Her courage
had restored them to endeavour a second time. If Barry failed her
too! Hitherto her fears had had no definite basis. There had been
no real ground for anxiety, only a developing similarity of
characteristics that was vaguely disquieting. But now, as she
looked at him, she realised that the man from whom she had parted
nearly two years before was not the man who now faced her across
the table. Something had happened--something that had changed him
utterly. This man was older by far more than the actual two years.
This was a man whom she hardly recognised; hard, stern, with a
curiously bitter ring at times in his voice, and the shadow of a
tragedy lying in the dark grey eyes that had changed so incredibly
for lack of their habitual ready smile. There were lines about his
mouth and a glint of grey in his hair that she was quick to
observe. Whatever had happened--he had suffered. That was written
plainly on his face. And unless he chose to speak she was
powerless to help him. She refused to intrude, unbidden, into
another's private concerns. That he was an adored nephew, that the
intimacy between them was great made no difference, the
restriction remained the same. But she was woman enough to be
fiercely jealous for him. She resented the change she saw--it was
not the change she had desired but something far beyond her
understanding that left her with the feeling that she was