ectful homage, that freedom for
which you have not deigned to ask."

She stared at him dumbly, one hand pressed against her breast. The ripple
of the river ran softly through the silence. Slowly at last Merrivale
turned to go.

And then sharply, uncertainly, she spoke.

"Wait, please!" she said.

She moved close to him and laid her hand on the flower-bedecked
balustrade, trembling very much.

"Why have you done this?" Her quivering voice sounded like a prayer.

He hesitated, then answered her quietly through the gloom.

"I did it because I loved you."

"And what did you hope to gain by it?" breathed Hilary.

He did not answer, and she drew a little nearer as though his silence
reassured her.

"Wouldn't it have saved a lot of trouble," she said, her voice very low
but no longer uncertain, "if you had given me my freedom in the first
place? Don't you think you ought to have done that?"

"I don't know," Merrivale said. "That fellow spoilt my game. So I offer
it to you now--with apologies."

"I should have appreciated it--in the first place," said Hilary, and
suddenly there was a ripple of laughter in her voice like an echo of the
water below them. "But now I--I--have no use for it. It's too late. Do
you know, Jack, I'm not sure he did spoil your game after all!"

He turned towards her swiftly, and she thrust out her hands to him with a
quick sob that became a laugh as she felt his arms about her.

"You hairless monster!" she said. "What woman ever wanted freedom when
she could have--Love?"

* * * * *

Two days later Viscount Merrivale's friends at the club read with
interest and some amusement the announcement that his marriage to Miss
Hilary St. Orme had been fixed to take place on the last day of the
month.

* * * * *

Death's Property

CHAPTER I

A high laugh rang with a note of childlike merriment from the far end of
the coffee-room as Bernard Merefleet, who was generally considered a bear
on account of his retiring disposition, entered and took his seat near
the door. It was a decidedly infectious laugh and perhaps for this reason
it was the first detail to catch his attention and to excite his
disapproval.

He frowned as he glanced at the menu in front of him.

He had arrived in England after an absence of twenty years in America,
where he had made a huge fortune. He was hungering