mburg regretting that
he could not rejoin her at present as he was on his way to Italy.

"I suppose all our plans are upset again!" she remarked with a pretty
pout, as she sat at my side while we went carefully through the
old-world town of Lewes. She had become just a little inquisitive
about myself. It seemed that she enjoyed her dances with me. Indeed,
she admitted it, but I could discern that she was a good deal puzzled
as to my means of livelihood. I had to be very circumspect, yet for
the life of me I could not imagine why I had been ordered to carry on
what was, after all, a mild flirtation with a very pretty young
married lady.

I could see that the other visitors at the hotel were whispering, and
more especially had I incurred the displeasure of a Mrs. Glenbury, an
elderly lady of distinctly out-of-date views, who with pathetic effort
tried to ape youth.

Late in the evening after our return from Brighton, I took a long
stroll alone along the lower promenade, close to the beach, which at
night is very ill-lit, being below the level of the well-illuminated
roadway. I suppose I had walked for quite a couple of miles when, on
my return, I discerned in front of me two figures, a man and a woman.
A ray of light from the roadway above shone on them as they passed,
and I noticed that while the woman wore an ordinary dark cloth coat,
the man was in tweeds and a golf cap.

An altercation had arisen between them.

"All right," he cried. "You won't live here very much longer--I'll see
to that! You've tried to do me down, and very nearly succeeded. And
now you refuse to give me even a fiver!"

Those words aroused my curiosity. I held back; for my feet fell
noiselessly because of my rubber heels. I strained my ears to catch
their further conversation.

"I've never refused you, Arthur!" replied the woman's voice.

I held my breath. The voice was Lady Lydbrook's. I could recognize it
anywhere!

I watched. The young man's attitude was certainly threatening.

"I don't intend now that you'll get off lightly. You'll have to pay me
not a fiver but fifty pounds to-night. So go back to the hotel and
bring me out a cheque. I'll wait at the Wish Tower. But mind it isn't
a dud one. If it is, then, by gad! I'll tell them right away. And
won't the fur fly then, eh?"

He spoke in a refined voice, though his appearance was that of a
loafer.

His companion was evidently in fear. She tried to argue, to cajole,
and to appear