midly appreciating the impertinence, "do
you lose very much?"

"I? No fear!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed again. "It amuses me to keep a
bridge account, and there's seldom a year when it fails to show a
credit balance of at least a thousand."

If Sally's bewilderment was only the deeper for this information, she
was sensible enough to hold her tongue.

Why need Mrs. Standish deliberately have uttered so monumental a
falsehood about the losses of her aunt at cards? She might, of course,
be simply and sincerely mistaken, misled by over-solicitude for a
well-beloved kinswoman.

On the other hand, the gesture of Adele Standish was not that of a
woman easily deceived.

Thus the puzzle swung full circle.

"Mind if I show you the way, Miss Manwaring?"

"Oh, no!" Sally started from her abstraction to find Trego had
lingered, and, smiling, turned to the steps that led down to the
terrace. "I'll be very glad . . ."

But the truth was that she was not glad of this unsolicited company;
she wanted uninterrupted opportunity to think things over;
furthermore, she thought the sheer weight and masculine force of
Trego's personality less ingratiating than another's--Savage's, for
instance, however shallow, was all ways amusing--or Lyttleton's, with
his flashing insouciant smile, his easy grace and utter repose of
manner.

But this Mr. Trego, swinging ponderously by her side down the terrace
walks, maintaining what was doubtless intended as a civil silence but
what achieved only oppressiveness, of a sudden inspired a sharp
impression that he would prove a man easy to dislike intensely--the
sort of man who is capable of inspiring fear and makes enemies without
any perceptible difficulty.

And if that were so--if, as it seemed, she had already, intuitively,
acquired a distaste for Mr. Trego--how could she at once retain her
self-respect and his money--money which she had won in defiance of the
rules of fair play?

It stuck in her fist, a hard little wad of silver wrapped in the bill;
nearly twenty-one dollars, the equivalent of three weeks' pay for
drudgery, the winnings of an idle hour, the increment of false
pretences.

"There's your view," Trego's voice broke upon the reverie. "Pretty
fine, isn't it?"

They paused in a corner of the terrace, where a low stone wall, grey,
weathered and lichened, fenced the brow of the cliff; and Sally's
glance compassed a panorama of sea and sky and rocky headlands,
with little appreciation of