hen I looked at
him,--Maurice, what does a red geranium mean? Has it--"

"Mrs. Dennis Sutherland's carriage!" bawled a liveried official by the
centre steps.

Mrs. Sutherland swept towards us.

"Come along, Anne," she cried, as we moved to meet her. "Perhaps we
shall see you later, Mr. Wynn? You'll be welcome any time, up to one
o'clock."

I put them into the carriage, and watched them drive away; then started,
on foot, for Whitehall Gardens. The distance was so short that I could
cover it more quickly walking than driving.

The night was sultry and overcast; and before I reached my destination
big drops of rain were spattering down, and the mutter of thunder
mingled with the ceaseless roll of the traffic.

I was taken straight to Lord Southbourne's sanctum, a handsomely
furnished, but almost ostentatiously business-like apartment.

Southbourne himself, seated at a big American desk, was making
hieroglyphics on a sheet of paper before him while he dictated rapidly
to Harding, his private secretary, who manipulated a typewriter close
by.

He looked up, nodded to me, indicated a chair, and a table on which were
whiskey and soda and an open box of cigarettes, and invited me to help
myself, all with one sweep of the hand, and without an instant's
interruption of his discourse,--an impassioned denunciation of some
British statesman who dared to differ from him--Southbourne--on some
burning question of the day, Tariff Reform, I think; but I did not
listen. I was thinking of Anne; and was only subconsciously aware of
the hard monotonous voice until it ceased.

"That's all, Harding. Thanks. Good night," said Southbourne, abruptly.

He rose, yawned, stretched himself, sauntered towards me, subsided into
an easy-chair, and lighted a cigarette.

Harding gathered up his typed slips, exchanged a friendly nod with me,
and quietly took himself off.

I knew Southbourne's peculiarities fairly well, and therefore waited for
him to speak.

We smoked in silence for a time, till he remarked abruptly: "Carson's
dead."

"Dead!" I ejaculated, in genuine consternation. I had known and liked
Carson; one of the cleverest and most promising of Southbourne's "young
men."

He blew out a cloud of smoke, watched a ring form and float away as if
it were the only interesting thing in the world. Then he fired another
word off at me.

"Murdered!"

He blew another smoke ring, and there was a spell of silence. I do not
even now know