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and in the end she’ll have to give in. This is the start of the new way perhaps it’ll be the finish too. . . . Lucky for me that Dad’ll swallow everything I say. Besides, nothing would please him better.”

Pamela went early to bed, declining coldly the short walk which Power proposed they should take.

“I suppose we shall be starting very early to-morrow,” she said. “They will be anxious about us at home.”

“Oh, they’ll know something important must have detained us, but you might be ready soon after eight.”

She was ready by half-past seven, but was told that Power was busy “at the stable”; and it was nearly nine o’clock before he came in to breakfast. He had no idea of making such an early meal that there would be no one there to take notes. Pamela was still unapproachable; that was a pity, but she would have to get over that. They had an uneventful drive home. Power was cheerful and inclined to be familiar; Pamela coolly polite. They arrived to find Aunt Rosa standing on the piazza.

“Hope you didn’t worry over us,” Power said casually. “It suited better to stay the night at Flanigan’s.”

Mrs. Learmonth said nothing, but she smiled—a smile that was more than three parts sneer, and her light eyes flashed a sudden look at Power which sent him chuckling round to the stables.

“So the old girl understands,” he thought, “and we can work this together. It’ll be the first time we’ve ever gone hand-in-hand, but her game’s plain enough. Poor old Dad, left to end his days with that sour face opposite him! But she’ll be a help to me—no doubt about that.”

Pamela, face to face with her aunt, found to her own intense surprise that her account of their enforced stay in town suddenly failed and faltered on her lips, under that smiling sneer. She stammered for a moment, made an