CONCERNS THE CURSE OF THE CARDINAL Gabrielle and Walter were seated together under one of the big oaks at the edge of the tennis-lawn at Connachan.

With May Spencer and Lady Murie they had been playing; but his mother and the young girl had gone into the house for tea, leaving the lovers alone.
"What's the matter with you to-day, darling ?" he had asked as soon as they were out of hearing.

"You don't seem yourself, somehow." She started quickly, and, pulling herself up, tried to smile, assuring him that there was really nothing amiss.
"I do wish you'd tell me what it is that's troubling you so," he said.
"Ever since I returned from abroad you've not been yourself.

It's no use denying it, you know." "I haven't felt well, perhaps.

I think it must be the weather," she assured him.
But he, viewing the facts in the light of what he had noticed at their almost daily clandestine meetings, knew that she was concealing something from him.
Before his departure on that journey to Japan she had always been so very frank and open.