! Everyone knows about Dr. Wade, but no one
connects him in the smallest degree with Hereford Wingarde. It shouldn't
be allowed to go on. You ought to tell the town-crier."

Nina tried to laugh, but it was a somewhat dismal effort.

"Come along!" said Archie cheerily. "There's my mother over there; she
has been wondering where you were."

Nina went with him with a nervous wonder if Hereford were still watching
her, but she saw nothing of him.

The afternoon wore away in music and gaiety. A great many of her
acquaintances were present, and to Nina the time passed quickly.

She was sitting in a big marquee drinking the tea that Archie had
brought her when she next saw her husband. By chance she discovered him
talking with a man she did not know, not ten yards from her. The tent
was fairly full, and the buzz of conversation was continuous.

Nina glanced at him from time to time with a curious sense of
uneasiness, and an unaccountable desire to detach him from his
acquaintance grew gradually upon her.

The latter was a heavy-browed man with queer, furtive eyes. As Nina
stealthily watched them she saw that this man was restless and agitated.
Her husband's face was turned from her, but his attitude was one of
careless ease, into which his big limbs dropped when he was at leisure.

Later she never knew by what impulse she acted. It was as if a voice
suddenly cried aloud in her heart that Wingarde was in deadly danger.
She gave Archie her cup and rose.

"Just a moment!" she said hurriedly. "I see Hereford over there."

She moved swiftly in the direction of the two men. There was disaster
in the air. She seemed to breathe it as she drew near. Her husband
straightened himself before she reached him, and half turned with his
contemptuous laugh. The next instant Nina saw his companion's hand whip
something from behind him. She shrieked aloud and sprang forward like a
terrified animal. The man's eyes maddened her more than the deadly
little weapon that flashed into view in his right hand.

There followed prompt upon her cry the sharp explosion of a
revolver-shot, and then the din of a panic-stricken crowd.

But Nina did not share the panic. She had flung herself in front of her
husband, had flung her whole weight upon the upraised arm that had
pointed the revolver and borne it downwards with all her strength. Those
who saw her action compared it later with the furious attack of a
tigress defending her young.

It was a