"_Dear Mrs. Challoner,--I am just writing to let you know that Jimmy is ill; nothing very serious, but I thought that perhaps you would like to know. If you could spare the time to come and see him, I am sure he would very much appreciate it. He seems very down on his luck. I don't want to worry or alarm you, and am keeping an eye on him myself, but thought it only right that you should know.--Your sincere friend,_

"RALPH SANGSTER."

It seemed a clumsy enough way of explaining things, he thought discontentedly, and yet it was the best he could do. He folded the paper and put it into the envelope; he sat for a moment with it in his hand looking down at Christine's married name, "Mrs. James Challoner."

Poor little Mrs. Jimmy! A wife, and yet no wife. Sangster lifted the envelope to his lips, and hurriedly kissed the name before he thrust the envelope into his pocket, and went out to post it.

Would she come, he wondered? he asked himself the question anxiously before he dropped the letter into the box. Somehow deep down in his heart he did not think that she would.

CHAPTER XVIII

KETTERING HEARS SOMETHING

"I shall never be able to manage it if I live to be a hundred," said Christine despairingly.

She leaned back in the padded seat of Kettering's big car and looked up into his face with laughing eyes.

She had been trying to drive; she had driven the car at snail's pace the length of the drive leading from Upton House, and tried to turn out of the open carriage gate into the road.

"If you hadn't been here we should have gone into the wall, shouldn't we?" she demanded.

Kettering laughed.

"I'm very much afraid we should," he said. "But that's nothing. I did all manner of weird things when I first started to drive. Take the wheel again and have another try."

But Christine refused.

"I might smash the car, and that would be awful. You'd never forgive me."

"Should I not!" His grave eyes searched her pretty face. "I don't think you need be very alarmed about that," he said. "However, if you insist----" He changed places with her and took the wheel himself.

It was early morning, and fresh and sunny. Christine was flushed and smiling, for the moment at least there were no shadows in her eyes; she looked more like the girl who had smiled up from the stalls in the theatre to where Jimmy Challoner sat alone in his box that night of their meeting.

Jimmy had never once been mentioned between herself and this man since that first afternoon. Save for the fact that Kettering called her "Mrs. Challoner," Christine might have been unmarried.

"Gladys will think we have run away," she told him presently with a little laugh. "I told her we should be only half an hour."

"Have we been longer?" he asked surprised.

Christine looked at her watch.

"Nearly an hour," she said. "We were muddling about in the drive for ever so long, you know; and I really think we ought to go back."

"If you really think so----" He turned the car reluctantly. "I suppose you wouldn't care for a little run after lunch?" he asked carelessly. "I've got to go over to Heston. I should be delighted to take you."

"I should love it--if I can bring Gladys."

He did not answer for a moment, then:

"Oh, bring Gladys by all means," he said rather dryly.

"What time?"

"I'll call for you at two--If that will do."

They had reached the house again now; Christine got out of the car and stood for a moment with one foot on the step looking up at Kettering.

There was a little silence.

"How long have we known each other?" he asked suddenly.

She looked up startled--she made a rapid calculation.

"Nearly three weeks, isn't it?" she said then.

He laughed.

"It seems longer; it seems as if I must have known you all my life."

The words were ordinary enough, but the look in his eyes brought the swift colour to Christine's cheeks--her eyes fell.

"Is that a compliment?" she asked, trying to speak naturally.

"I hope so; I meant it to be."

Her hand was resting on the open door of the car; for an instant he laid his own above it; Christine drew hers quickly away.

"Well, we'll be ready at two, then," she said. She turned to the house. Kettering drove slowly down the drive. He was a very fine-looking man, Christine thought with sudden wistfulness; he had been so kind to her--kinder than anyone she had ever known. She was glad he was going to have Upton House, as it had got to be sold. He had promised her to look after it, and not have any of the trees in the garden cut down.

"It shall all be left just as it is now," he told her.

"Perhaps some day you'll marry, and your wife will want it altered,"

she said sadly.

"I shall never get married," he had answered quickly.

She had been glad to hear him say that; he was so nice as a friend, somehow she did not want anyone to come along and change him.

She went into the house and called to Gladys.

"I thought you would think we were lost perhaps," she said laughingly, as she thrust her head into the morning-room where Gladys was sitting.

The elder girl looked up; her voice was rather dry when she answered: "No, I did not think that."

Christine threw her hat aside.