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“I hope it will be fine for Tuesday, Miss Mavis.”

“So do I, Mrs. Grogram, indeed!” Mavis replied. She was standing in Lockford Street, a little basket in her hand; for the nonce she was acting as Lady Laura’s deputy and distributing the tickets for her various charities. Mrs. Grogram, a lady of independent views and the parent of a numerous progeny, was leaning over her garden gate in a négligé costume. “I don’t know what we shall do if it be wet,” Mavis went on. “Certainly there will be the tents, but you will be crowded up all of you.”

“Ay, and tents isn’t everything if it rains!” remarked Mrs. Grogram, whose disposition was apparently pessimistic. “I mind how when I was staying with my cousin and we went to Squire Mayhew’s harvest home it set on to pour, and after about half an hour it come through the marquee, as they called it, just as if it was running through a sieve.”

“Well, we must hope that ours will be made of stouter stuff,” said Mavis with a laugh. “You’ll bring Tommy, won’t you, Mrs. Grogram. My brother wants the children particularly.”

“Which I call very good of him, m’m, and him having none of his own. Oh, yes, I shall bring Tommy! Mr. Garth Davenant’ll be coming down, I reckon, Miss Mavis?”

Mavis’s colour deepened.

“He will be at the Court to-morrow.”

“Ah, I thought we should have him over, though it doesn’t seem long since he went away! As I said to Grogram when he said maybe Mr. Garth would not be able to spare the time, ‘Bless you, Grogram,’ I says, ‘he’ll make time for that! Do you think he’d leave Miss Mavis alone with all the folk going in and out of the Manor, and all Sir Arthur’s friends about?’ Nice looking young gentlemen too, some of them, I’ll be bound! No, he won’t give them a chance of cutting him out!”

In spite of a touch of vexation Mavis laughed aloud.

“I don’t think he is coming because he thinks I am not to be trusted, Mrs. Grogram, but because he knows that I shouldn’t enjoy it a bit if he were not there.”

“Ay, do you think so, indeed, miss? Well, we are all like that one time or another,” Mrs. Grogram replied indulgently. “As for Mr. Garth,” she added more critically, “I am not going to say but he is a fine figure of a man, but as far as looks go he isn’t a patch on poor Mr. Walter. The last big ‘do’ as you may call it, as we had down in these parts was when he come of age, wasn’t it, miss?

Mavis looked grave.

“I suppose it was,” she said hesitatingly, “but that was when my uncle was alive, before we lived here, and I was only a child then.”

“Were you really, miss? I am sure no one would think it to see the well-grown young lady you are now,” Mrs. Grogram observed complimentarily. “Then you never see Mr. Walter, miss? But there, it wasn’t long after that that it all happened. I shouldn’t wonder if it don’t bring it back to Mr. Garth though. The good lady as come down last week is over again for the coming of age, I suppose, miss?”

“What good lady?” asked Mavis mechanically. Her thoughts had strayed far away from Mrs. Grogram and were busy with that tragedy of old.

“The one as come here thinking she might know something about the young lady, Miss Hilda, as they call her.”

Mavis frowned. Though of late, unconfessed even to herself, an element of distrust had crept into her feeling for Hilda, still loyalty to her brother demanded that Mrs. Grogram’s disparaging tone, when speaking of his fiancée, should be checked.

“Oh, you mean Mrs. Leparge!” she said coldly. “No, she is not likely to be here—in fact, poor lady, she is probably too much occupied to find the time.”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Grogram said confidently. “She has got time enough, miss. She is staying down here now. An hour or so ago I had occasion to go up to Farmer Townson’s, and I come across her talking to Miss Hilda over by the Home Wood.”

Mavis looked surprised.

“I think you must be mistaken, Mrs. Grogram.”

“Mistaken! Me, miss!” Mrs. Grogram’s tone was righteously indignant. “It ain’t often as I make a mistake; more by token as I had almost to ask ’em to move to let me get over the stile. This person here, she were telling the young lady she must do something—I don’t know rightly what, I’m sure, but I heard her say, ‘The rest can be managed, but it remains for you to do your part.’ Yes, miss, them was her very words.”

“Oh!” said Mavis, feeling distinctly puzzled. “Well, I don’t know, I am sure; I had no idea she was likely to be in the neighbourhood again. Perhaps her inquiries after her daughter may have brought her this way.”

“Perhaps they may,” Mrs. Grogram assented with a sniff as Mavis moved on. “Thank you kindly, miss! I am sure I hope the weather will hold good.”

Mavis walked quickly up the lane and into the park. Very bitterly now, watching her brother’s growing infatuation for Hilda, was she inclined to regret the introduction of a stranger into their home circle; more especially did she blame herself for yielding to the spell that Hilda’s beauty and charm had cast over her.

She dated her first conscious feeling that Hilda was not the wife her brother should have chosen from Mrs. Leparge’s visit, and she was by no means inclined to welcome the news that that lady was in the neighbourhood again. She knit her brows as she walked quickly over the short grass, crisp with the first frost of autumn, and tried to recall the events of the last three months in their true sequence, but so much seemed to have happened in them that her brain grew confused. She told herself, looking back, that she could have fancied it a phantasmagoria of bad dreams, in which the only thing that was real was her love for Garth, or, as she whispered with a tender little smile, their love for one another.

Lunch was on the table, and was indeed, being somewhat of an informal meal at the Manor, already in progress when she went into the dining-room. Hilda was looking particularly well, Mavis noticed, as she slipped into the place opposite; the pale blue gown she was wearing was one that had been run together for her by Lady Laura’s maid, as Mavis knew, but its very simplicity made Hilda look younger and more girlish. She seemed bright and animated too, and was exchanging gay badinage with Arthur, from whom she glanced off to smile at Mavis.

“What do you say to this new proposal, Mavis—that you and I are to take a day in town to-morrow to choose the presents to be given at the treat next week?”

“It is out of the question for me, I am afraid,” Mavis said as the man brought her a plate. “Garth comes down to-morrow. I hear you have met a friend to-day, Hilda.”

“A friend!” Hilda looked bewildered. “I don’t know what you mean. I think,” with a wistful smile, “all the friends I know are in this room at present.”

“I heard you had been having a chat with Mrs. Leparge.”

“With Mrs. Leparge?” Hilda’s amazement became more obvious. “Is she here?”

“Isn’t she?” Mavis parried. “Have you not been talking to her?”

“I? Certainly not!”

“What bee have you got in your bonnet now, Mavis?” her brother struck in. “Hilda has not had much opportunity of talking to anybody but me; she has been out with me all the morning, and I think I have taken up most of her time.”

“I suppose it was a mistake then,” Mavis said, turning, her attention to her lunch. “Mrs. Grogram told me she saw you by the stile going into the Home Coppice, and that you were talking to Mrs. Leparge.”

“We went through the Home Wood; I had to speak to Greyson,” Sir Arthur said, “but I didn’t see Mrs. Grogram.”

“Oh, that was it!” Hilda exclaimed with a laugh. “While you went into Greyson’s cottage and I was waiting for you, Arthur, a woman—a lady—came up and asked me a lot of questions about the neighbourhood. I was sorry I couldn’t give her much information, but I didn’t notice that she was like Mrs. Leparge.’’

“She was a stranger, then?” Mavis said.

“Evidently, because she didn’t know her way about. She was asking for Townson’s farm, and the directions for that were within my capability. Your Mrs. Grogram must have been a woman who pushed by us rather rudely, with a basket on her arm.’’

“She doesn’t stand much on ceremony,’’ Mavis said with a smile, having a lively recollection of some of the worthy woman’s remarks, “but she seemed very sure about Mrs. Leparge. And you say your stranger was not like her?”

“The resemblance did not strike me at the time,’’ said Hilda carelessly; “She was not in widow’s dress, you see, which makes such a difference, but she was about Mrs. Leparge’s height, and—yes—I did not think of it before, but she may have been a little like her in the face.’’

Mavis did not pursue the subject. Evidently Mrs. Grogram had made a mistake, she told herself, in spite of her positive words, for what possible motive could Hilda have for denying that she met Mrs. Leparge if she had done so?

Nevertheless the incident had left an unpleasant impression, and she felt by no means sorry when Arthur announced his intention of taking his fiancée for a long spin in the motor, and she was thus left free to follow her own devices.

Motoring, Arthur’s latest hobby, had for the last few weeks threatened to supersede both painting and orchids; his new car was at present a source of unmixed joy, and so safely had he hitherto come through the perils inseparable from acting as his own chauffeur that even Lady Laura was becoming accustomed to seeing him depart without a single qualm.

Hilda looked particularly charming in her motor array, Arthur thought as he helped her into the car. Like himself, she disdained goggles, and the little pull-on hat which she wore, which pulled low down over her forehead, enhanced rather than concealed her brilliant complexion.

At first their progress was all that could be desired. The Manor was soon left miles behind, and Sir Arthur was loud in his praises of his new toy; then, as, regardless of regulation speed, they were swinging along over a fine stretch of level road, there was a whir, a crash, and the car came to a stop with a suddenness that sent Sir Arthur against the front of the motor.

“Something’s wrong!” he said with a rueful countenance as he recovered himself.

Hilda laughed mischievously, though for one moment the colour had deserted her cheeks.

“That is certainly pretty obvious,” she said.

Sir Arthur made no comment as he bent over the machine and carefully investigated various nuts and cranks.

“It will take some time, I am afraid,” he said at last.

“Fortunately we are near Overdeen, and the smith there is an intelligent sort of man and, moreover, has had a good deal of practice on breakdowns. I dare say he will be able to help me. In the meantime”—he glanced perplexedly at Hilda—“there is the village inn, and Mrs. Medway is a very decent clean sort of person. If you would let me take you there while we put this thing to rights, I dare say she would get you a cup of tea.”

“Delicious!” Hilda exclaimed, springing out and accepting the situation with equanimity. “But you will have to let me go alone. You can’t leave the car.’’

“The car will not move,” Arthur said grimly. “Anybody who puts that in working order before I get back will deserve the thing for his pains. Come, if you can manage it—the house is by those trees.”

Mrs. Medway, the smiling buxom hostess of the Red Lion, received them with open arms. She placed a private sitting-room at their disposal, and while Sir Arthur went off to interview the smith she entertained Hilda with graphic descriptions of the different accidents that had occurred in the neighbourhood.

Finally, when Sir Arthur appeared with the tidings that the smith had declared himself fully capable of managing the repairs alone, Mrs. Medway placed a luxurious tea before the young couple and left them alone.

Sir Arthur’s eyes dwelt lovingly on Hilda as she poured out the tea and handed it to him.

“I wonder what sort of a dinner that good woman thinks we should eat if we ate all the good things she has provided?” he said with a laugh. “Ah, Hilda, this is like a foretaste of the times that are coming!”

“As to quantity, do you mean?” Hilda inquired demurely.

“You know what I mean!” he went on passionately. “Of the life that we are going to share together—-of the time when we shall be alone, Hilda.”

The girl bent her face over the tea-cup.

“Ah! If it comes—”

“Do not say ‘if’,” he cried. “Hilda, you do not know what this means to me.”

The girl raised her eyes.

“Do I not? Oh, Arthur! You must not ignore the condition I made. When my memory comes back—”

Arthur caught her hand.

“Memory! Memory!” he echoed in a low deep tone. “It is not your memory I want—it is you yourself, the woman I love. When you are my wife, Hilda, I too shall have no memory, for I shall remember nothing but the fact that you are mine and that we are together.”

Hilda bit her lip nervously.

“Oh, I wish I could remember—if I only knew my name—who my friends were!”

“Why do you wish for other friends?” Arthur cried, pressing his lips to the hand he still held. “Am I not enough for you? Sweetheart, you have filled my life so entirely that I want no one but you! Day after day I ask myself if it can really be true—if this wonderful thing had really happened to me—that you are indeed my own!”

Hilda drew her hand away nervously as she averted her face. Sir Arthur could see that she was very pale, but her very coldness only rendered her more attractive in his eyes.

“Darling,” he pleaded, “don’t turn from me! If I could only make you understand how in you everything seems completed for me! There is only one thought in my mind all day—one word fills my life, and that word is—Hilda!”

Hilda glanced round once more; her face was still pale, but a suspicion of mirth gleamed in her eyes and played round the curves of her mobile lips.

“How about the car, and the orchids, and the Elaine?” she asked mischievously. “No, no, Arthur, your heart is not like the letter-lock of your safe! It will open for more words than one.”

For a moment Arthur looked distinctly aggrieved. That Hilda was not a demonstrative girl, that she was inclined apparently rather to scoff at his sentiment when they were alone, he had long since discovered, but he told himself that it was a girlish caprice, that she was only delaying the day of complete surrender, and his face brightened.

“Don’t you understand how outside one’s life all those things are? Hilda—”

“Is the only combination for which the key will turn,” she said as she laughed, though the man saw that her slender hands were trembling and took courage. “Are you sure, Arthur? Suppose I tried orchids or motor or Elaine?”

“Elaine means Hilda to me,” he smiled, entering into the spirit of her jest. “You might try that and be successful.”

“Isn’t it strange?” Hilda said abruptly, her mind evidently wandering from Sir Arthur’s love-making. “I know I have seen one of those letter-locks before, and I cannot tell where or what the word was. I wonder whether it was the same as yours?”

“Hardly likely, I think,” Sir Arthur said quickly. “Don’t try to remember, Hilda. Memory is more likely to come back if you do not try to strain it.”

Already the look of helpless bewilderment that he had learned to dread was coming into the girl’s face; she leaned forward and put her hands over her eyes.

“Oh, I thought the cloud was lifting then! Just for a moment I seemed to have a vision of what had been — and—now—now it is all dark again!”

Sir Arthur felt desperate—consolation seemed impossible when these moods of depression overtook Hilda. He laid his hand on her shoulder.

“It will come all right some day.”

The girl stirred impatiently.

“It—I seemed to see it all then; and now, with the letters, it has all faded away. But it is near—so near. Arthur”—looking at him with eyes once more filled with tears—“if I could only remember that word I feel sure that everything would come back, and something seems to tell me that it is the same as yours.”

“I do not think it is very likely, dear. Ours is a very ordinary little word, and so far as I know it has never been altered.”

Hilda’s lips quivered pitifully.

“If I could only find out, Arthur! If you love me, help me—tell me yours.”

My darling, it has always been kept a dead secret, and it could not possibly—”

Hilda’s face seemed to quiver all over into sobs.

“Such a little thing, and you said you loved me; and it is so near—so near! Then all would be clear, and we could be happy as we never can be till I know.”

“Hilda, dearest!” Arthur bent over her.

She pushed him away and buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, how can I make myself remember? It will kill me!”

Arthur put his arms round her and drew her, still resisting, to his heart.

“If the word will help you, sweetheart, you shall know it. And after all it is not breaking the rule, for you and I are to be one—you are to be my second self!”

“Yes, yes!” Hilda whispered, her arms stealing for one instant round his neck. “Ah, so soon, Arthur— when I know!”

“It is such a simple word,” Arthur went on; ”just ‘m—i—n—e’—mine, you see, only we spell it backwards—‘e—n—i—m.’—That is all the secret, Hilda. Now does it help you, dear?”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute,” the girl said slowly, her head still resting on his shoulder, her perfumed hair sweeping across his face and intoxicating his senses. “It—Oh, Arthur, I see a tall man with white hair! I remember him—he was my father, my dear father! And they called him General—General—Oh, it is going! I can’t remember—”

There was a knock at the door.

“If you please, Sir Arthur, the man has brought your car round,” said Mrs. Medway, discreetly averting her eyes from the young couple, whose confusion was plainly evident. “He says he hopes as you will be able to manage it home all right now.”