sion of
London:--Arthur at the War Office--herself on open ground--no longer
interfered with and over-shadowed. He would come to see her--take
her out, perhaps, sometimes to an exhibition, or for a walk. The
suggestion of going to Margaret had been made on the spur of the
moment without after-thought. She was now wedded to it, divining in
it a hundred possibilities.

At the same moment she became more cautious, and more ashamed of
herself. It would be better to apologize. But before she could speak
Elizabeth said:

'Does Desmond agree with what you have been saying?'

Pamela staring at her adversary was a little frightened. She rushed
into a falsehood.

'Desmond knows nothing about it! I don't want him dragged in.'

Elizabeth's eyes, with their bitter, wounded look; seemed to search
the girl's inmost mind. Then she moved away.

'We had better go to bed. We shall both want to think it over.
Good-night.'

And from the darkness of the hall, where fire and lamp were dying,
Pamela half spell-bound, watched the tall figure of Elizabeth slowly
mounting the broad staircase at the further end, the candle-light
flickering on her bright hair, and on a bunch of snowdrops in her
breast.

Then, for an hour, while the house sank into silence, Pamela sat
crouched and shivering by the only log left in the grate. 'A little
while ago,' she was thinking miserably, 'I had good feelings and
ideas--I never hated anybody. I never told lies. I suppose--I shall
get worse and worse.'

And when she had gone wearily to bed, it was to cry herself to
sleep.

The following morning, an urgent telegram from her younger sister
recalled Elizabeth Bremerton to London, where her mother's invalid
condition had suddenly taken a disastrous turn for the worse.

CHAPTER XII

'Hullo, Aubrey! what brings you here?' And with the words Arthur
Chicksands, just emerging from the War Office, stopped to greet a
brother officer, who was just entering it.

'Nothing much. I shan't be long. Can you wait a bit?'

'Right you are. I've got to leave a note at the Ministry of
Munitions, but I'll be back in a few minutes.'

Arthur Chicksands went his way to Whitehall Gardens, while Major
Mannering disappeared into the inner regions of that vast building
where dwell the men on whom hang the fortunes of an Empire. Arthur
walking fast up Whitehall was very little aware of the scene about
him. His mind was occupied with the details of the interview in
w