are quite cut off from the rest of
the place. If ever you murder Peter Phipps and want a hiding place, I
shall be able to provide you with one!"

He was looking unusually thoughtful. It was evident that he was pursuing
some train of reflection suggested by her words. At the mention of
Phipps' name, however, he came back to earth.

"I think I should rather like to murder Phipps," he confessed. "The worst
of it is the laws are so ridiculously undiscriminating. One would have
to pay the same penalty for murdering him as for getting rid of an
ordinary human being."

"Queer how I share your hatred of that person," she murmured.

"Was he trying to make love to you this afternoon?" Wingate asked
bluntly.

"He was just too clever," she replied, "to put it into plain words. His
instinct told him what the result would be, so he decided to wait a
little longer, although just towards the end he nearly gave himself
away. As a matter of fact," she went on, "he was rather tediously
melodramatic. My husband, it seems, is in disgrace with the company--has
overdrawn, or helped himself to money, or something of the sort. I rather
fancy that I am cast for the role of self-sacrificing wife, who saves her
husband from prison by little acts of kindness to his wronged partner.
Somehow or other, I don't think the role suits me. I am a very
hard-hearted woman, I suppose, but I don't believe I should lift up my
little finger to save Henry from prison. Besides, I hate the British and
Imperial Granaries."

"Why?" he asked.

"I hate the principle of gambling in commodities that are necessary for
the poor," she answered. "I don't pretend to be a philanthropist, or
charitable, or anything of that sort. I am wrapped up in my own life and
its unhappiness. At the same time, I would never receive as a friend any
one who indulged in that sort of speculation."

He looked at her thoughtfully, for once without that absorbing personal
interest which had sprung up like a flame in his life. He felt that
underneath her words lay real earnestness, real purpose.

"Tell me," he asked, a little abruptly, "if I started a crusade
against the British and Imperial, outside the Stock Exchange
altogether, if I embarked in a crude and illegal scheme to break them
up, would you help me?"

"To the fullest extent of my power," she answered eagerly. "Tell me about
it at once, please?"

"Not for a few days," he replied. "I have to think out many details, to
get m