A Sovereign Remedy

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

"As it is just on three now," he replied, "I'll stop and see him anyhow."

It might be wiser, he felt. It would be a thing got over, which, after the abruptness of their last parting, was desirable; though, on the whole, he was inclined to have done with it all, to congratulate Ted on his success, and renounce all claim on a woman who had evidently forgotten love in motherhood--and housekeeping.

He felt very bitter; though the question as to whether she could be more content forced itself upon him rudely.

"There he is!" cried Aura joyfully, as in the jerry-built house the grating noise of a latch-key in the front lock became distinctly audible at the back. "I'll run and tell him you are here, and then I can change my dress before we start."

It was on the whole a relief that they two--men who were rivals--should meet without the cause of the rivalry being present also. Though magnanimity was the only card to play. What else was possible when you could distinctly hear the cause of rivalry being kissed in the hall?

Ned Blackborough, therefore, was frankness itself. "How are you, Ted? I won't say I'm glad, but I do find Aura very well, and very happy--so--so that ends it, I suppose."

Ted, who was also looking the picture of health and happiness, flushed up with pleasure, and gripped Lord Blackborough's hand effusively. "Upon my soul, Ned," he cried, "you are just an awfully good sort--one of the best fellows living; and I feel I've been a bit of a beast. Only you don't know how the thought that we should have fallen out over this thing has worried me. It is real good to have you back again. And she is happy, isn't she?--bless her heart! though why she should have kept you in this horrid bare room at the back, I can't think. Come into the drawing-room, old man, it is something like. But it isn't a bad house, is it? Far too expensive, of course, but----"

Afloat on finance, Ted's conscious virtue overflowed like a cold douche on Ned's patience, which had almost succumbed under explanations that, after all, he "was getting along, but that it was safer--especially with expenses ahead--to have a wide margin," when Aura reappeared. She was wearing the white coat and skirt, the brown Tam-o'-Shanter in which she had gone to Plas Afon. Ned used often to say that in his last incarnation he must either have been a woman or a man milliner; now he recognised without effort, that not only had Aura knotted the Mechlin scarf about her neck but that she also carried the sables over her arm. So she also remembered.

The fact decided him in an instant. "Let me take those," he said coolly. She looked conscious as she gave up the furs, and remarked hurriedly, "We can walk there, Ted; but we might return by the five-thirty train from Elsham."

"Then I'll wire for the motor to meet me there," replied Ned. "It is only six miles to New Park and there is no object in my going round by Blackborough again; besides there is always a wait at the junction."