-and a big lump!"

G.J. could see the quick heave of her bosom imprisoned in the black.
She was breathing through her nostrils.

"Come downstairs into the house," he said sharply--more than sharply,
brutally. "Where in the name of God is the sense of stopping up here?
Are you both mad?"

Queen laughed lightly.

"Oh, G.J.! How funny you are! I'm really surprised you haven't left
London for good before now. By rights you ought to belong to the
Hook-it Brigade. Do you know what they do? They take a ticket to any
station north or west, and when they get out of the train they run to
the nearest house and interview the tenant. Has he any accommodation
to let? Will he take them in as boarders? Will he take them as paying
guests? Will he let the house furnished? Will he let it unfurnished?
Will he allow them to camp out in the stables? Will he sell the
blooming house? So there isn't a house to be had on the North Western
nearer than Leighton Buzzard."

"Are you going? Because I am," said G.J.

Concepcion murmured:

"Don't go."

"I shall go--and so will you, both of you."

"G.J.," Queen mocked him, "you're in a funk."

"I've got courage enough to go, anyhow," said he. "And that's more
than you have."

"You're losing your temper."

As a fact he was. He grabbed at Queen, but she easily escaped him.
He saw the whiteness of her skirt in the distance of the roof, dimly
rising. She was climbing the ladder up the side of the chimney. She
stood on the top of the chimney, and laughed again. A gun sounded.

G.J. said no more. Using his flash-lamp he found his way to the
ladder-shaft and descended. He was in the warm and sheltered interior
of the house; he was in another and a saner world. Robin was at the
foot of the ladder; she blinked under his lamp.

"I've had enough of that," he said, and followed her to the
illuminated boudoir, where after a certain hesitation she left him.
Alone in the boudoir he felt himself to be a very shamed and futile
person, and he was still extremely angry. The next moment Concepcion
entered the boudoir.

"Ah!" he murmured, curiously appeased.

"You're quite right," said Concepcion simply.

He said:

"Can you give me any reason, Con, why we should make a present of
ourselves to the Hun?"

Concepcion repeated:

"You're quite right."

"Is she coming?"

Concepcion made a negative sign. "She doesn't know what fear is, Queen
doesn't."

"She doesn't know what sense is. She ought to