put the temptation aside. Business before
pleasure.

With a jaunty, if somewhat unsteady, step, he climbed the stairs to
the floor above, and made his way down the corridor to Sir Thomas's
room. He switched on the light, and went to the dressing-table. The
drawer was locked, but in his present mood Spennie, like Love,
laughed at locksmiths. He grasped the handle, and threw his weight
into a sudden tug. The drawer came out with a report like a pistol-shot.

"There!" said his lordship, wagging his head severely.

In the drawer lay the four bank-notes. The sight of them brought
back his grievance with a rush. He would teach Sir Thomas to treat
him like a kid! He would show him!

He was removing the notes, frowning fiercely the while, when he
heard a cry of surprise from behind him.

He turned, to see Molly. She was still dressed in the evening gown
she had worn at dinner; and her eyes were round with wonder. A few
moments earlier, as she was seeking her room in order to change her
costume for the theatricals, she had almost reached the end of the
corridor that led to the landing, when she observed his lordship,
flushed of face and moving like some restive charger, come
curvetting out of his bedroom in a dazzling suit of tweeds, and make
his way upstairs. Ever since their mutual encounter with Sir Thomas
before dinner, she had been hoping for a chance of seeing Spennie
alone. She had not failed to notice his depression during the meal,
and her good little heart had been troubled by the thought that she
must have been responsible for it. She knew that, for some reason,
what she had said about the letter had brought his lordship into his
uncle's bad books, and she wanted to find him and say she was sorry.

Accordingly, she had followed him. His lordship, still in the war-horse
vein, had made the pace upstairs too hot, and had disappeared
while she was still halfway up. She had arrived at the top just in
time to see him turn down the passage into Sir Thomas's dressing-room.
She could not think what his object might be. She knew that
Sir Thomas was downstairs, so it could not be from the idea of a
chat with him that Spennie was seeking the dressing-room.

Faint, yet pursuing, she followed on his trail, and arrived in the
doorway just as the pistol-report of the burst lock rang out.

She stood looking at him blankly. He was holding a drawer in one
hand. Why, she could not imagine.

"Lord Dreever!" she exclaimed.

Th