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“See here,” he said, “I think that’s a dreadful story, and you’ve had a very bad time indeed, but it’s all over now, and you’re not to think any more about it; we’ll both do our best to forget it—see? And I’m here to look after you, and see that nothing bothers you any more.”

“Yes.” She sighed happily. “I don’t quite see, all the same, why you should be so very cheerful about it now—you were serious enough when I began.”

“I was so afraid it might be something worse,” he said, very low, and added, when she, only half understanding, said, “It was quite bad enough,”—“But I shall never be really content, I think, unless I get the chance to kill Alick Power.”

“Oh, don’t, Tony! Don’t talk like that. It is all over now, and do you know, I do think Aunt Rosa was much the worst. After all, he did care-a great deal.”

But seeing Tony’s face was growing grim again she hastily changed the conversation.

“What is to happen now? You see”—triumphantly—“you’ll have to go back to Trent Stoke—you can’t get out of it.”

“No.” Tony’s voice was rueful. “Anyway, Pamela, I’m not going to England till you do—do you hear?”

“Very well. I shan’t mind now.”

“Pamela, couldn’t we get hold of an aunt and uncle or so to live at Trent Stoke and let us both be there? Couldn’t something like that be managed?” It sounded an even unlikelier arrangement than it had before, but Tony had checked himself on the point of saying, “Pamela, would you marry me, and then we’d go there together?” It felt so easy and simple with that soft, warm thing nestling in his arms; it seemed the natural, inevitable way out, but after all it would be cruel to her. Either she would be horribly startled and lose her trust in him—perhaps fly blindly, seeing in him a second Alick Power, for her nerves