ou
were enemies, but then you were enemies not personally, but politically.
After all, it is you who stand for the things which have become so dear
to me."

"It is true that Bernadine and I were bitter antagonists," Peter
admitted, gravely. "Death, however, ends all that. I wish him no further
harm."

She sighed.

"As for me," she said, "I am growing used to being friendless. I was
friendless before Bernadine came, and latterly we have been nothing to
one another. Now, I suppose, I shall know what it is to be an outcast
once more. Did you ever hear my history, I wonder?"

Peter shook his head.

"Never, Baroness," he replied. "I understood, I believe, that your
marriage--"

"My husband divorced me," she confessed, simply. "He was quite within
his rights. He was impossible. I was very young and very sentimental.
They say that Englishwomen are cold," she added. "Perhaps that is so.
People think that I look cold. Do you?"

Sogrange suddenly opened the door of the car in which they were already
seated. She leaned back and half closed her eyes.

"It is rather a long ride," she said, "and I am worn out. I hope you
will not mind, but for myself I cannot talk when motoring. Smoke, if it
pleases you."

"Might one inquire as to our exact destination?" Sogrange asked.

"We go beyond Hitchin, up the Great North Road," she told him again.
"The house is called the High House. It stands in the middle of a heath
and I think it is the loneliest and most miserable place that was ever
built. I hate it and I am frightened in it. For some reason or other, it
suited Bernadine, but that is all over now."

The little party of three relapsed into silence. The car, driven
carefully enough through the busy streets, gradually increased its
pace as they drew clear of the suburbs. Peter leaned back in his place,
thinking. Bernadine was dead! Nothing else would have convinced him
so utterly of the fact as that simple sentence in the Daily Telegraph,
which had been followed up by a confirmation and a brief obituary notice
in all the evening papers. Curiously enough, the fact seemed to have
drawn a certain spice out of even this adventure; to point, indeed, to
a certain monotony in the future. Their present enterprise, important
though it might turn out to be, was nothing to be proud of. A woman,
greedy for gold, was selling her lover's secrets before the breath was
out of his body. Peter turned in his cushioned seat to look at her.
With