Christopher Staines came back, looking pained and disturbed.

"There," said he, "I feared it would come to this.

I have quarrelled with Uncle Philip." "Oh! how could you ?" "He affronted me." "What about ?" "Never you mind.

Don't let us say anything more about it, darling.

It is a pity, a sad pity--he was a good friend of mine once." He paused, entered what had passed in his diary, and then sat down, with a gentle expression of sadness on his manly features.