I was born and made. You
can't blame me for that, can you? Besides,--"

He broke off suddenly. A little murmur from the girl behind
reminded him of her presence. He passed on to the door.

"Good night, Isaac," he said. "Look after Ruth. She's lonely
to-night."

"I'll look after her," was the grim reply. "As for you, get you
gone. There was one of your sort came to the meeting of Jameson's
moulders this afternoon. He had a question to ask and I answered
him. He wanted to know wherein wealth was a sin, and I told him."

Arnold Chetwode was young and his sense of humor triumphant. He
turned on the threshold and looked into the shadowy room, dimly lit
with its cheap lamp. He kissed his hands to Ruth.

"My dear Isaac," he declared, lightly, "you are talking like an ass.
I have two shillings and a penny ha'penny in my pocket, which has to
last me till Saturday, and I earn my twenty-eight shillings a week
in old Weatherley's counting-house as honestly as you earn your wage
by thundering from Labor platforms and articles in the _Clarion_. My
clothes are part of the livery of civilization. The journalist who
reports a Lord Mayor's dinner has to wear them. Some day, when
you've got your seat in Parliament, you'll wear them yourself. Good
night!"

He paused before closing the door. Ruth's kiss came wafted to him
from the shadows where her great eyes were burning like stars. Her
uncle had turned his back upon him. The word he muttered sounded
like a malediction, but Arnold Chetwode went down the stone steps
blithely. It was an untrodden land, this, into which he was to pass.

CHAPTER III

ARNOLD SCENTS MYSTERY

From the first, nothing about that evening was as Arnold had
expected. He took the tube to Hampstead station, and, the night
being dry, he walked to Pelham Lodge without detriment to his
carefully polished patent shoes. The neighborhood was entirely
strange to him and he was surprised to find that the house which was
pointed out to him by a policeman was situated in grounds of not
inconsiderable extent, and approached by a short drive. Directly he
rang the bell he was admitted not by a flamboyant parlormaid but by
a quiet, sad-faced butler in plain, dark livery, who might have been
major-domo to a duke. The house was even larger than he had
expected, and was handsomely furnished in an extremely subdued
style. It was dimly, almost insufficiently lit, and there was a
faint but not unpleasant odor in the d