! I knew it the
first time I ever saw her! I used to tell her that she'd got no right to
be at Heeler's. I know she's got something in her that I can't ever
have, because her father was a gentleman, I suppose, and mine wasn't. So
if you say the word, I'll pack up right away and be off! I can't say
fairer than that, can I?"

There was a little silence. Then suddenly Forrester held out his hand.

"You're a brick--a real brick!" he said. "And--and--I shall be grateful
to you if you will stay, Miss Fraser."

Peg gripped his hand hard.

"Oh, I'll stay, if you mean it," she said. She spoke rather loudly in
order to hide her real emotion, and turning quickly away began to talk
hurriedly on some other subject. But later, when Forrester had gone from
the room, she darted across to where he had thrown his coat down on a
chair, and snatching it up, pressed her lips to it.

"If you cared for me, as you do for her," she said, in a fierce little
whisper, and then bitterly: "Oh, she's a fool--a blind little fool!"

CHAPTER IX

The house at Hampstead was ready at the end of August, and Peg moved to
it from the flat with Forrester and his wife.

She and Faith were like a couple of children getting the house in order;
Peg had not much taste, and she adored bright colours. She would have
had a rainbow drawing-room if it had been left for her to decide, but
Faith was determined to be mistress in her own house as far as its
arrangement went, and on that subject she and her husband were for once
agreed.

It was rather a charming house, with a long garden, shut in by a high
wall, and the first night they were established there Faith found Peg
leaning out of her bedroom window, which overlooked it, her elbows
resting on the stone sill, and a look of gloomy despondency in her
handsome eyes.

Faith slipped an arm round her.

"What's the matter, Peg?" she asked. She was very fond of Peg and quick
to recognize her varying moods. Peg answered gruffly, without her usual
cheeriness.

"I'm fed up! I don't belong here! What right have I got to be in a house
like this, and sleeping in a room like this?"

She turned round sharply, her blue eyes taking in every detail of the
expensively furnished room behind them.

She had chosen its wallpaper herself, which was too bright, and a mass
of extraordinary looking birds. She had chosen the carpet, too, which
was a curious mixture of greens and yellows, with a satin quilt on the
bed t