The girl winced, quietly, between herself and the blind-cord.

"And in the meantime," she said lightly, "I suppose he is fully engaged
in buying swords and guns and bomb-shells, or whatever the Goorkhas use
in warfare."

"He is coming home to-morrow for Sunday," replied Jem Agar's stepmother
absently. She was thinking of her own son, and therefore did not hear the
quick sigh which was almost a gasp; did not note the sudden light in the
girl's eyes.

Dora Glynde was rather a solitary-minded young person. The only child of
elderly parents, she had never learnt in the nursery to indulge in the
indiscretions of confiding girlhood. She had the good fortune to be
without a bosom-friend who related her most sacred secrets to other bosom
friends and so on, as is the way of maidens. From her father she had
inherited a discriminating mind and a most admirable habit of reserve.
She was quite happy when alone, which, according to La Bruyere, is a
great safeguard against all evil.

She wanted to be alone now, and therefore passed out of the open window
with a non-committing "Good-bye, Aunt Anna!"

"Good-bye, dear," replied the lady, awaking suddenly from a reverie. But
by the time she had turned round in her chair, the girl was gone.

Dora crossed the lawn, passing between the sentinel pines and crossing
the moat by the narrow footbridge. She climbed the railing with all the
ease of nineteen years and struck a bee-line across the park. She never
raised her eyes from the ground, never paused in her swinging gait, until