ere you are gadding about with the fellow."

"Oh," she shrugged her shoulders, "if it is only village gossip that you
mind!"

"But it isn't. I've had enough of the fellow hanging about. He's a
Polish Jew, anyway."

"A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the"--she looked
at him--"stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman."

Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood rose
to John's face in a crimson tide.

"Mary!"

"Well?" Her tone did not change.

The pleading died out of his voice.

"Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my
express wishes?"

"If I choose."

"You defy me?"

"No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no
friends of whom I should disapprove?"

John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face.

"What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice.

"You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have
no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?"

John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face.

"No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched
out his hands. "Mary----"

For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her
face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away.

"None!"

She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the
arm.

"Mary"--his voice was very quiet now--"are you in love with this fellow
Bauerstein?"

She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange
expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about
it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled.

She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder.

"Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade,
leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone.

Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches
with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted
that I had only just come upon the scene.

"Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his
cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?"

"He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day."

"Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten
world it is, though!"

"You find it so?" I asked.

"Good Lord, yes! There's this terrible business to start with. Sc