re
of squalid streets, where half-dressed men and women hung from the top
windows and were even to be seen upon the roof, struggling for air. The
car at last pulled up at the corner of a long street.

"I am going down here," Sir Timothy announced. "I shall be gone perhaps
an hour. The neighbourhood is not a fit one for you to be left alone in.
I shall have time to send you home. The car will be back here for me by
the time I require it."

"Where are you going?" she asked curiously. "Why can't I come with you?"

"I am going where I cannot take you," was the firm reply. "I told you
that before I started."

"I shall sit here and wait for you," she decided. "I rather like the
neighbourhood. There is a gentleman in shirt-sleeves, leaning over the
rail of the roof there, who has his eye on me. I believe I shall be
a success here--which is more than I can say of a little further
westwards."

Sir Timothy smiled slightly. He had exchanged his hat for a tweed cap,
and had put on a long dustcoat.

"There is no gauge by which you may know the measure of your success,"
he said. "If there were--"

"If there were?" she asked, leaning a little forward and looking at him
with a touch of the old brilliancy in her eyes.

"If there were," he said, with a little show of mock gallantry, "a very
jealously-guarded secret might escape me. I think you will be quite all
right here," he continued. "It is an open thoroughfare, and I see two
policemen at the corner. Hassell, my chauffeur, too, is a reliable
fellow. We will be back within the hour."

"We?" she repeated.

He indicated a man who had silently made his appearance during the
conversation and was standing waiting on the sidewalk.

"Just a companion. I do not advise you to wait. If you insist--au
revoir!"

Lady Cynthia leaned back in a corner of the car.

Through half-closed eyes she watched the two men on their way down
the crowded thoroughfare--Sir Timothy tall, thin as a lath, yet with
a certain elegance of bearing; the man at his side shorter, his hands
thrust into the pockets of his coat, his manner one of subservience. She
wondered languidly as to their errand in this unsavoury neighbourhood.
Then she closed her eyes altogether and wondered about many things.

Sir Timothy and his companion walked along the crowded, squalid street
without speech. Presently they turned to the right and stopped in front
of a public-house of some pretensions.

"This is the place?" Sir