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After the episode in the wayside cottage on that showeryof May Anstice made no further attempt to avoid Iris Wayne

The way in which she had received his story had lifted a weight off his mind She had not shrunk from him, as in his morbid distrust he had fancied possible Rather she had shown him only the sweetest, kindest pity; and it see she had greeted him with a nearmth in her manner which was surely intended to convey to him the fact that she had appreciated the confidence he had bestowed upon her

Besides--like the rest of us Anstice was a sophist at heart--the kindness hich Sir Richard Wayne had consistently treated hiratitude at least

It would be discourteous, if nothing more, to refuse his invitations save when the press of work precluded their acceptance; and so it came about that Anstice once ates, incidentallythe acquaintance of Lady Laura Wells, Sir Richard's ed sister, who kept house for hi imperiousness

Sir Richard, for all his years, was hale and hearty and loved a game of tennis; so that when once Iris' wrist was healed there were ames in which Iris, partnered either by Cheniston or Anstice, darted about the court like a young Diana in her short white skirt and blouse open at the neck to display the firreatest charonis these golden summer days Had they met in different circuue and undefined, of rivalry between them, it is possible there would have been no positive hostility in their enuine friendship was naturally debarred, seeing the nature of the memory they shared in common; but it would have been conceivably possible for thenized one another's existence with a neutrality which would have covered a real but har been forced, by an unkind Fate, into a position in which each saw in the other a possible rival, any neutrality was out of the question It had not taken Anstice long to discover that Cheniston had so far recovered from the loss of Hilda Ryder as to consider the possibility ofanother woman his wife; nor had Cheniston's eyes been less keen

He had very quickly discovered that Anstice was in love with pretty Iris; and instantly a fire of opposition sprang into fierce fla once deprived hiain be permitted to come between him and his desire