to bed yet, then?" Duncombe remarked. "Let me make you a
whisky and soda, old chap. You look a bit tired."

"Very good of you--I think I will," Andrew answered. "And, George, are
you sure that I should not be putting you out at all if I were to
stay--say another couple of days with you?"

Duncombe wheeled round and faced his friend. His reply was not
immediate.

"Andrew," he said, "you know very well that I haven't a pal in the world
I'd sooner have here than you for just as long as you choose to stay,
but--forgive me if I ask you one question. Is it because you want to
watch Miss Fielding that you have changed your mind?"

"That has a good deal to do with it, George," Andrew said quietly. "If I
left without meeting that young lady again I should be miserable. I want
to hear her speak when she does not know that any one is listening."

Duncombe crossed the room and laid his hand upon the other's shoulder.

"Andrew, old fellow," he said, "I can't have it. I can't allow even my
best friend to spy upon Miss Fielding. You see--I've come a bit of a
cropper. Quick work, I suppose, you'd say. But I'm there all the same."

"Who wants to spy upon Miss Fielding?" Andrew exclaimed hoarsely. "She
can be the daughter of a multi-millionaire or a penniless adventurer for
all I care. All I want is to be sure that she isn't Phyllis Poynton."

"You are not yet convinced?"

"No."

There was a moment's silence. Duncombe walked to the window and
returned.

"Andrew," he said, "doesn't what I told you just now make a
difference?"

Andrew groaned.

"Of course it would," he answered, "but--I'm fool enough to feel the
same about Phyllis Poynton."

Duncombe, in the full glow of sensations which seemed to him to give a
larger and more wonderful outlook on life, felt his sympathies suddenly
awakened. Andrew Pelham, his old chum, sitting there with his huge,
disfiguring glasses and bowed head, was surely the type of all that was
pathetic. He forgot all his small irritation at the other's obstinacy.
He remembered only their long years of comradeship and the tragedy which
loomed over the life of his chosen friend. Once more his arm rested upon
his shoulder.

"I'm a selfish brute, Andrew!" he said. "Stay as long as you please, and
get this idea out of your brain. I'm trying to get Miss Fielding and her
father down here, and if I can manage it anyhow I'll leave you two
alone, and you shall talk as long as you like. Come, we'll have a