ce
broke upon their ears.

"Good afternoon, Iris. Am I too late for a game of tennis?"

Bruce Cheniston, racquet in hand, had come round the corner of the
shrubbery, and as she heard his voice Iris turned to him swiftly.

"Oh, good afternoon! You are late, aren't you? We waited for you ever so
long, then as you did not come Dr. Anstice and I played a single."

"Oh." He looked rather curiously at the other man. "Which was the
victor? You?"

"Oh, Dr. Anstice always beats me!" Iris laughed. "You and I are more
evenly matched, Bruce--though I confess you generally win."

"Well, come and have a sett before the light goes." He glanced again at
Anstice. "Unless Anstice is giving you your revenge?"

"No, I'm off." Anstice straightened himself and held out his hand.
"Good-bye, Miss Wayne. Thanks so much for our game."

"Good-bye." She smiled at him with a hint of mischief in her eyes. "You
won't forget the fifteenth? I shan't believe any excuses about urgent
cases!"

He smiled too.

"I shan't tax your credulity," he said, "and I hope you won't forget
your promise!"

Their mutual smile, and the hint of an understanding between them which
Anstice's last words, perhaps intentionally, conveyed, brought a frown
to Cheniston's bronzed forehead.

"Oh, by the way, Anstice"--he spoke very deliberately, looking the other
man full in the face the while--"I want to have a chat with you--on a
matter of some little importance to us both. When are you likely to be
at liberty?"

The brightness died from Anstice's face; and when he answered his voice
was devoid of any note of youth.

"I am generally at liberty late in the evening," he said coolly. "If the
matter is important I can see you at nine o clock to-night. You'll come
to my place?"

"Thanks." Bruce took out his cigarette case and having selected a
cigarette handed the case to the other. "Then, if convenient to you, I
will be round at nine this evening."

"Very good." Anstice declined a cigarette rather curtly. "If I should be
unavoidably detained elsewhere I will ring you up."

"Right." Bruce picked up his racquet and turned to Iris as though to say
the subject was closed. "Are you ready, Iris? You like this side best, I
know."

And, with a sudden premonition of evil at his heart, Anstice turned away
and left them together in the sunny garden.

CHAPTER IX

"Well, Dr. Anstice, I have come, as you see."

Cheniston entered the room on the stroke of nine,