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“I like you for that,” Cheveril said, after a moment. “Can you bring yourself to shake hands?”

There was unmistakable friendliness in his tone, and Willowby responded to it promptly. He was a sportsman at heart, however he might rail at circumstance.

As their hands met, he looked up with a queer, mirthless smile.

“I hope you are going to be good to her,” he said.

“I am going to be good to you both,” said Lester Cheveril quietly.

In the silence that followed his words, the band on the pier became audible on a sudden gust of wind. It was gaily jigging out the tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

* * * * *

“What a secluded corner, Miss Harford! May I join you?”

Evelyn Harford looked up with a start of dismay. He was the last person in the world with whom she desired a tete-a-tete; but he was dining at her father’s house, and she could not well refuse. Reluctantly she laid aside the paper on her knee.

“I thought you were playing bridge,” she said, in a chilly tone.

“I cried off,” said Cheveril.

He stood looking down at her with shrewd, kindly eyes. But the girl was too intent upon making her escape to notice his expression.

“Won’t you go to the billiard-room?” she said. “They are playing pool.”

He shook his head.

“I came here expressly to talk to you,” he said.

“Oh!” said Evelyn.

She leaned back in her chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew–she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed his suit just then.

Cheveril, however, seemed in no hurry. He sat down facing her, and there followed a pause, during which she felt that he was studying her attentively.

Growing desperate at length, she looked him in the face, and spoke.

“I am not a very lively companion to-night, Mr. Cheveril,” she said. “That is why I came away from the rest.”

There was more of appeal in her voice than she intended; and, realising it, she coloured deeply, and looked away again. He was just the sort of man to avail himself of a moment’s weakness, she told herself, with rising agitation. Those shrewd eyes of his missed nothing.

But Cheveril gave no sign of having observed her distress. He maintained his silence for some seconds longer. Then, somewhat abruptly, he broke it.

“I didn’t follow you in order to be amused, Miss Harford,” he said. “The fact is, I have a confession to make to you, and a favour to ask. And I want you to be good enough to hear me out before you try to answer. May I count on this?”

The dry query did more to quiet her perturbation than any solicitude. She was quite convinced that he meant to propose to her, but his absence of ardour was an immense relief. If he would only be businesslike and not sentimental, she felt that she could bear it.

“Yes, I will listen,” she said, facing him with more self-possession than she had been able to muster till that moment. “But I shall want a fair hearing, too–afterwards.”

A faint smile flickered across Cheveril’s face.

“I shall want to listen to you,” he said. “The confession is this: Last night I went down to the parade to smoke. It was very dark. I don’t know exactly what attracted me. I came upon two people saying good-bye on the beach. One of them–a woman–was crying.”

He paused momentarily. The girl’s face had frozen into set lines of composure. It looked like a marble mask. Her eyes met his with an assumption of indifference that scarcely veiled the desperate defiance behind.

“When does the confession begin?” she asked him, with a faint laugh that sounded tragic in spite of her.