ong the floor almost to his feet.

"Would you like him to be in it?" he asked, with a meaning glance
beneath his lashes. "It is a pity to throw away a good chance; his
position is not so very secure, you know."

She gave a strange little hunted glance round the room. She was wedged
into a corner, and could not rise without incurring the risk of his
saying something she did not wish to hear. Then she leant forward and
deliberately withdrew her dress from the touch of his whip, which was in
its way a subtle caress.

"Is he throwing away the chance?" she asked.

"No, but you are."

Then she rose from her seat, and, standing in the middle of the room,
faced him with a sudden gleam in her eyes.

"I do not see what it has to do with me," she said; "I do not know
anything about Maurice's business arrangements, and very little about
his business friends."

"Then let me tell you, Jocelyn--well, then, Miss Gordon, if you prefer
it--that you will know more about one of his business friends before you
have finished with him. I've got Maurice more or less in my power now,
and it rests with you--"

At this moment a shadow darkened the floor of the verandah, and an
instant later Jack Meredith walked quietly in by the window.

"Enter, young man," he said dramatically, "by window--centre."

"I am sorry," he went on in a different tone to Jocelyn, "to come in
this unceremonious way, but the servant told me that you were in the
verandah with Durnovo and--"

He turned towards the half-breed, pausing.

"And Durnovo is the man I want," weighing on each word.

Durnovo's right hand was in his jacket pocket. Seeing Meredith's
proffered salutation, he slowly withdrew it and shook hands.

The flash of hatred was still in his eyes when Jack Meredith turned
upon him with aggravating courtesy. The pleasant, half-cynical glance
wandered from Durnovo's dark face very deliberately down to his jacket
pocket, where the stock of a revolver was imperfectly concealed.

"We were getting anxious about you," he explained, "seeing that you
did not come back. Of course, we knew that you were capable of
taking--care--of yourself."

He was still looking innocently at the tell-tale jacket pocket, and
Durnovo, following the direction of his glance, hastily thrust his hand
into it.

"But one can never tell, with a treacherous climate like this, what a
day may bring forth. However, I am glad to find you looking--so very
fit."

Victor Durnovo ga