d you away?"

The words were so deliciously naive and girlish that Lessing was
obliged to laugh; they were also so transparently eloquent of the
speaker's interest and concern for himself that a great pang rent his
heart at the vision of life as it might be. Life with Delia--with
Delia's children, a happy, breezy, family life, repeating the
atmosphere of the corner house in some flowery suburban cottage. Oh,
how good it seemed, how full and satisfying! What a joy to a tired
man to have that haven to which to return at the close of his day's
work. Time had been when he had scoffed at the smug security of
suburban life; had pitied the lot of the man who spent his evenings
playing with his children and mowing a miniature lawn, but in the
light of the last month's experience, he asked nothing better of fate
than to find himself in a precisely similar position.

"No, Delia, no!" he cried ardently, "there is no business trouble.
It's--er--something outside. Don't speak of it, please. I want to
tell you, and I ought not. It's dear and sweet of you to care. I
can't tell you how much it has meant to me the last few weeks, just to
be able--"

Delia interrupted hurriedly, after the manner of young women who
ardently long to hear a declaration of love, yet take fright at the
first symptom of its approach.

"Anyway," she said decisively, "you have _got_ to come to the cottage
over Whitsuntide. I insist upon it, so it's no use trying to escape.
Three whole days in the country will steady your nerves. It's not at
all _comme il faut_ for a director to have jumpy nerves. If I were a
shareholder I'd sell out at once. You will travel down with us on
Friday afternoon, and stay as long as you can the next week.
Understand?"

Lessing thankfully accepted the invitation, which was duly confirmed
by Mrs Gordon upon her return to the sitting-room, and a week later
he arrived at the week-end cottage, after a safe and comfortable
journey in the company of his cheerful friends.

During that week only one disquieting incident had happened, but that
was ominous enough. A typed envelope lying among other letters on the
breakfast-table was left carelessly until the others had been read and
digested, and then torn open with the scant courtesy shown to notes of
the circular type; but the folded slip bore no printed words, and as
Lessing jerked it apart there f