it Mrs. Weatherley's account with it."

Sabatini took out his cigarette case.

"You will forgive me?" he said. "In your offices, I believe, it is
not the custom, but I must confess that I find your atmosphere
abominable. Last night I saw Fenella. She told me of your
disagreement with her and your baseless suspicions. Really,
Chetwode, I am surprised at you."

"'Suspicions' seems scarcely the word," Arnold murmured.

Sabatini sighed.

"You are such a hideously matter-of-fact person," he declared.
"Fenella should have seen your attitude from the humorous point of
view. It would have appealed to me very much indeed."

"I am sorry if your sister misunderstood anything that I said,"
Arnold remarked, a little awkwardly.

"My dear fellow," Sabatini continued, "there seems to have been very
little ground for misunderstanding. Fenella was positively hurt. She
says that you seem to look upon us as a sort of adventurer and
adventuress--people who live by their wits, you understand, from
hour to hour, without character or reputation. She is quite sure, in
her own mind, that you believe Mr. Weatherley's absence to be due to
our secret and criminal machinations."

"I am sorry," Arnold replied, "if anything I said to your sister has
given her that impression. The fact remains, however, that Mrs.
Weatherley has declined to give me any explanation of various
incidents which were certainly more than bewildering. One cannot
help feeling," he went on, after a moment's hesitation, "that if my
friendship were of any account to your sister--which, of course, it
isn't--she would look at the matter differently."

"My dear Chetwode," Sabatini declared, "my sympathies are entirely
with you. The trouble of it is, of course, that the explanations
which you demand will probably leave you only the more bewildered.
When I came to London," he continued, watching the smoke from his
cigarette, "I said to myself, 'In this great black city all hopes of
adventure must be buried. Fenella will become a model wife of the
_bourgeoisie_. I myself, if I stay, shall probably become director
of some city company where they pay fees, give up baccarat for
bridge, imbibe whiskey and soda instead of the wine of my country;
perhaps, even--who knows?--I may take to myself a wife and live in a
villa.' On the contrary, other things have happened. Even here the
earth has trembled a little under our feet. Even now we listen for
the storm."

"You talk to me alwa