t in want," she answered.
"Tell her, too, that I refuse to send my address. Tell her that the one
aim of my life is to keep the knowledge of my whereabouts a secret from
her."

Tavernake relapsed into silence. He was thinking. Mysteries had no
attraction for him--he loathed them. Against this one especially he felt
a distinct grudge. Nevertheless, some instinct forbade his questioning
the girl.

"Apart from more personal matters, then," he asked after some time, "you
would not advise me to enter into any business negotiations with this
lady?"

"You must not think of it," Beatrice replied, firmly. "So far as money
is concerned, Elizabeth has no conscience whatever. The things she wants
in life she will have somehow, but it is all the time at other people's
expense. Some day she will have to pay for it."

Tavernake sighed.

"It is very unfortunate," he declared. "The commission on the letting of
Grantham House would have been worth having."

"After all, it is only your firm's loss," she reminded him.

"It does not appeal to me like that," he continued. "So long as I am
manager for Dowling & Spence, I feel these things personally. However,
that does not matter. I am afraid it is a disagreeable subject for you,
and we will not talk about it any longer."

She lit a cigarette with a little gesture of relief. She came once more
to his side.

"Leonard," she said, "I know that I am treating you badly in telling
you nothing, but it is simply because I do not want to descend to half
truths. I should like to tell you all or nothing. At present I cannot
tell you all."

"Very well," he replied, "I am quite content to leave it with you to do
as you think best."

"Leonard," she continued, "of course you think me unreasonable. I can't
help it. There are things between my sister and myself the knowledge of
which is a constant nightmare to me. During the last few months of my
life it has grown to be a perfect terror. It sent me into hiding at
Blenheim House, it reconciled me even to the decision I came to that
night on the Embankment. I had decided that sooner than go back, sooner
than ask help from her or any one connected with her, I would do what I
tried to do the time when you saved my life."

Tavernake looked at her wonderingly. She was, indeed, under the spell
of some deep emotion. Her memory seemed to have carried her back into
another world, somewhere far away from this dingy little sitting-room
which they two wer