ith his riding whip.

"Yes, I heard of that," he admitted. "I dare say if he hadn't gone,
though, some one else would."

"Would you have gone if you had been there?" she asked.

"If you had told me to," he replied, looking at her steadfastly.

Philippa felt a little shiver. There was something ominous in the
intensity of his gaze and the meaning which he had contrived to impart
to his tone. She rose to her feet.

"Well," she said, "don't let me keep you here. I am getting cold."

He passed his arm through the bridle of his horse. "I will walk with
you, if I may," he proposed. She made no reply, and they set their faces
homewards.

"I hear Lessingham has left the place," he remarked, a little abruptly.

"Oh, I expect he'll come back," Philippa replied.

"How long is it, Lady Cranston, since you took to consorting with German
spies?" he asked.

"Don't be foolish--or impertinent," she enjoined. "You are making a
ridiculous mistake about Mr. Lessingham."

He laughed unpleasantly.

"No need for us to fence," he said. "You and I know who he is. What I
do want to know, what I have been wondering all the way from the point
there--four miles of hard galloping and one question--why are you his
friend? What is he to you?"

"Really, Captain Griffiths," she protested, looking up at him, "of what
possible interest can that be to you?"

"Well, it is, anyhow," he answered gruffly. "Anything that concerns you
is of interest to me."

Philippa realised at that moment, perhaps for the first time, what it
all meant. She realised the significance of those apparently purposeless
afternoon calls, when through sheer boredom she had had to send for
Helen to help her out; the significance of those long silences, the
melancholy eyes which seemed to follow her movements. She felt an
unaccountable desire to laugh, and then, at the first twitchings of her
lips, she restrained herself. She knew that tragedy was stalking by her
side.

"I think, Captain Griffiths," she said gravely, "that you are talking
nonsense, and you are not a very good hand at it. Won't you please ride
on?"

He made no movement to mount his horse. He plodded along the soft sand
by her side--a queer, elongated figure, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the
ground.

"Until this fellow Lessingham came you were never so hard," he
persisted.

She looked at him with genuine curiosity.

"I was never so hard?" she repeated. "Do you imagine that I have ever
for a single