" he added.

In a few minutes he had drawn the whole story from Sandy's eager lips,
and as he listened his eyes grew curiously hard and determined.

"So we've just one chance--the house in Westminster," he commented.
"We'll go there, Sandy. At once."

They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street.
Hailing a passing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon's
house, where he enquired for Rooke in a perfectly ordinary manner, as
though expecting to find him in, and was told by the maid who opened
the door that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out again
immediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.

"Then I'll wait," said Peter, easily. "Miss Davenant's waiting here,
too, isn't she?"

An odd look of surprise crossed the girl's face. She had
thought--well, what matter what she had thought since it was evident
there was really no secret about the lady's presence in her master's
house. These people obviously expected to meet her there. Perhaps
there were others coming as well, to an appointed rendezvous for a
restaurant supper party or something of the sort.

"Yes, sir," she answered civilly, "Miss Davenant is in the studio."

Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind of
tension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open the
studio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lit
fire, her hands clasped round her knees.

She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon
Peter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of
colour drained away from her face.

"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for the
back of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.

But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them as
of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so
that Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place.
Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone
together.

"Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," said
Nan at last.

She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.

"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it's--easy--for me to
ask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . Dear
God! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it
undone?"

"I can't go back--I can't indeed! Why shoul