f love to furnish the house for her as for himself.
Perhaps there would be a few tears in those gentle eyes, but no more.
Thank God, no reproaches there.

David lighted a cigarette and paced restlessly round the dining-room.
Never had he appreciated its quiet beauty more than he did now. There
were flowers, blood-red flowers, on the table under the graceful electric
stand that Steel had designed himself. He snapped off the light as if the
sight pained him, and strode into his study. For a time he stood moodily
gazing at his flowers and ferns. How every leaf there was pregnant with
association. There was the Moorish clock droning the midnight hour. When
Steel had brought that clock--

"Ting, ting, ting. Pring, pring, ping, pring. Ting, ting, ting, ting."

But Steel heard nothing. Everything seemed as silent as the grave. It was
only by a kind of inner consciousness that he knew the hour to be
midnight. Midnight meant the coming of the last day. After sunrise some
greasy lounger pregnant of cheap tobacco would come in and assume that he
represented the sheriff, bills would be hung like banners on the outward
walls, and then.--

"Pring, pring, pring. Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting.
Pring, pring, pring."

Bells, somewhere. Like the bells in the valley where the old vicarage
used to stand. Steel vaguely wondered who now lived in the house where he
was born. He was staring in the most absent way at his telephone, utterly
unconscious of the shrill impatience of the little voice. He saw the
quick pulsation of the striker and he came back to earth again.

Jefferies of the _Weekly Messenger_, of course. Jefferies was fond of a
late chat on the telephone. Steel wondered grimly, if Jefferies would
lend him L1,000. He flung himself down in a deep lounge-chair and placed
the receiver to his ear. By the deep, hoarse clang of the wires, a
long-distance message, assuredly.

"From London, evidently. Halloa, London! Are you there?"

London responded that it was. A clear, soft voice spoke at length.

"Is that you, Mr. Steel? Are you quite alone? Under the circumstances you
are not busy to-night?"

Steel started. He had never heard the voice before. It was clear and
soft and commanding, and yet there was just a suspicion of mocking
irony in it.

"I'm not very busy to-night," Steel replied. "Who is speaking to me?"

"That for the present we need not go into," said the mocking voice. "As
certain old-fashioned con