ered,
would have caused him to drink heavily; and he could not let Lucy see
him the worse for liquor. He induced her, after leaving a note to say
that she would call early next morning, to go quietly home. When they
arrived at Charles Street, where was Lady Kelsey's house, they found a
wire from George to say he could not get up to town till the following
day.

To Lucy this had, at least, the advantage that she could see her father
alone, and at the appointed hour she made her way once more to his flat.
He took her in his arms and kissed her warmly. She succumbed at once to
the cheeriness of his manner.

'I can only give you two minutes, darling,' he said. 'I'm full of
business, and I have an appointment with my solicitor at eleven.'

Lucy could not speak. She clung to her father, looking at him with
anxious, sombre eyes; but he laughed and patted her hand.

'You mustn't make too much of all this, my love,' he said brightly.
'These little things are always liable to happen to a man of business;
they are the perils of the profession, and we have to put up with them,
just as kings and queens have to put up with bomb-shells.'

'There's no truth in it, father?'

She did not want to ask that wounding question, but the words slipped
from her lips against her will. He broke away from her.

'Truth? My dear child, what do you mean? You don't suppose I'm the man
to rob the widow and the orphan? Of course, there's no truth in it.'

'Oh, I'm so glad to hear that,' she exclaimed, with a deep sigh of
relief.

'Have they been frightening you?'

Lucy flushed under his frank look of amusement. She felt that there was
a barrier between herself and him, the barrier that had existed for
years, and there was something in his manner which filled her with
unaccountable anxiety. She would not analyse that vague emotion. It was
a dread to see what was so carefully hidden by that breezy reserve. She
forced herself to go on.

'I know that you're often carried away by your fancies, and I thought
you might have got into an ambiguous position.'

'I can honestly say that no one can bring anything up against me,' he
answered. 'But I do blame myself for getting mixed up with that man
Saunders. I'm afraid there's no doubt that he's a wrong 'un--and heaven
only knows what he's been up to--but for my own part I give you my
solemn word of honour that I've done nothing, absolutely nothing, that I
have the least reason to be ashamed of.'

Lu