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102 which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an impression of intimidating truculence.

Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.

"Oh no!" she said shyly. "I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you—well, you've only to let me know."

"It's awfully kind of you," she murmured.

There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his embarrassment forthwith left him.

"Thank Heaven!" he said after his outspoken habit. "I was afraid I was putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a minute or two, I'd just like to say"

He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.

"Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?"

She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it was, he knew she understood and appreciated.

Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.

"I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened," he said in a moment. "Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!"

He had said exactly the right thing now.

"He certainly was mine!" she said.