ce time to look at sketches, upon my word! And who's Trenholme,
I'd like to know?"

Sylvia bethought herself. Certainly an explanation was needful, and
her feminine wit supplied one instantly.

"Mr. Trenholme was sent here by the Scotland Yard people," she said,
a trifle less frigidly. "I suppose we shall all be mixed up in the
inquiry the detectives are holding, and it seems that Mr. Trenholme
was at work in the park this morning when that awful affair took
place. Unknown to me, I was near the spot where he was sketching
before breakfast, and one of the detectives, the little one, says it
is important that--that the fact should be proved. Mr. Trenholme
called to tell me just what happened. So you see there is nothing in
his action that should annoy any one--you least of any, since you
were away from home at the time."

"But why has he mizzled over the wall?"

"He is staying at the White Horse Inn, and has gone to fetch the
drawings."

"Oh, I didn't understand. If that's it, I'll wait till he turns up.
You'll soon get rid of him."

Sylvia had no valid reason to urge against this decision, but she did
not desire Robert's company, and chose a feminine method of resenting
it.

"I don't think Mr. Trenholme will be anxious to meet you," she said
coolly.

"Why not?"

"You are such a transparent person in your likes and dislikes. You
have never even seen him, in the ordinary sense of the word, yet you
speak of him in a way so unwarranted, so ridiculously untrue, that
your manner might annoy him."

"My manner, indeed! Is he so precious then? By gad, it'll be
interesting to look this rare bird over."

She turned her back on him and leaned on the wall again. Her slight,
lissome figure acquired a new elegance from her black dress. Robert
had never set eyes on Sylvia in such a costume before that day.
Hitherto she had been a schoolgirl, a flapper, a straight-limbed,
boyish young person in long frocks; but today she seemed to have put
on a new air of womanliness, and he found it strangely attractive.

"There's no sense in our quarreling about the chap anyhow," he said
with a gruff attempt to smooth away difficulties. "Of course, I
sh'an't let on I followed you. Just spotted you in the distance and
joined you by chance, don't you know."

Sylvia did not answer. She was comparing Robert Fenley's
conversational style with John Trenholme's, and the comparison was
unflattering to Robert.

So he, too, came and leaned o