ple would be laughing at
me."

She finished buttoning her gloves and was looking at him curiously.

"What is the matter with you, John?" she asked suddenly, and he almost
jumped.

"With me, love?" he said with a brave attempt at a smile. "Why, there's
nothing the matter with me. What should there be?"

"You've been very strange lately," she said, "ever since you came back
from London."

"I think I ate something that disagreed with my digestion," he said
uneasily. "I didn't know that I'd been different."

"Are things well at your--factory?" she asked.

"At mills? Oh, aye, they're all right," he said. "I wish everything was
as right as them."

"As they," she corrected.

"As they," said the humble Mr. Crotin.

"There's something wrong," she said, and shook her head, and Mr. Crotin
found himself going white. "I'll have a talk with you when I've got this
wretched bazaar business out of my head," she added, and with a little
nod she left him.

He walked to the window of the long dining-hall and watched her car
disappearing down the drive, and then with a sigh went back to his
_entremets_.

When Colonel Dan Boundary surmised that this unfortunate victim of his
blackmail would be worried, he was not far from the mark. Crotin had
spent many sleepless nights since he came back from London, nights full
of terror, that left him a wreck to meet the fears of the days which
followed. He lived all the time in the shadow of vengeful justice and
exaggerated his danger to an incredible degree; perhaps it was in
anticipating what his wife would say that he experienced the most
poignant misery.

He had taken to secret drinking too; little nips at odd intervals, both
in his room and in his private office. Life had lost its savour, and now
a new agony was added to the knowledge that his wife had detected the
change. He went to his office and spent a gloomy afternoon wandering
about the mills, and came back an hour before his usual time. He had not
the heart to make a call at the bazaar, and speculated unhappily upon
the proceeds of the afternoon session.

It was therefore with something like pleasure that he heard his wife on
the telephone speaking more cheerfully than he had heard her for months.

"Is that you, John?" she was almost civil. "I'm bringing somebody home
to dinner. Will you tell Phillips?"

"That's right, love," said Mr. Crotin eagerly.

He would be glad to see some new face, and that it was a new face he