ghed at the constraint of his
acquaintances, and when three of them crossed the road hurriedly in Great
Beeding to avoid Stella and himself he said good-humouredly:

"They are like an ill-trained company of bad soldiers. Let one of them
break from the ranks and they'll all stream away so as not to be left
behind. You'll see, Stella. One of them will come and the rest will
tumble over one another to get into your drawing-room."

How much he believed of what he said Stella did not inquire. She had a
gift of silence. She just walked a little nearer to him and smiled, lest
any should think she had noticed the slight. The one man, in a word, who
showed signs of wear and tear was Mr. Hazlewood himself. So keen was his
distress that he had no fear of his sister's sarcasms.

"I--think of it!" he exclaimed in a piteous bewilderment, "actually I
have become sensitive to public opinion," and Mrs. Pettifer forbore from
the comments which she very much longed to make. She was in the study
when Harold Hazlewood was shown in, and Pettifer had bidden her to stay.

"Margaret knows that I have been reading these reports," he said. "Sit
down, Hazlewood, and I'll tell you what I think."

Mr. Hazlewood took a seat facing the garden with its old red brick wall,
on which a purple clematis was growing.

"You have formed an opinion then, Robert?"

"One."

"What is it?" he asked eagerly.

Robert Pettifer clapped the palm of his hand down upon the cuttings from
the newspapers which lay before him on his desk.

"This--no other verdict could possibly have been given by the jury. On
the evidence produced at the trial in Bombay Mrs. Ballantyne was properly
and inevitably acquitted."

"Robert!" exclaimed his wife. She too had been hoping for the contrary
opinion. As for Hazlewood himself the sunlight seemed to die off that
garden. He drew his hand across his forehead. He half rose to go when
again Robert Pettifer spoke.

"And yet," he said slowly, "I am not satisfied."

Harold Hazlewood sat down again. Mrs. Pettifer drew a breath of relief.

"The chief witness for the defence, the witness whose evidence made the
acquittal certain, was a man I know--a barrister called Thresk."

"Yes," interrupted Hazlewood. "I have been puzzled about that man ever
since you mentioned him before. His name I am somehow familiar with."

"I'll explain that to you in a minute," said Pettifer, and his wife
leaned forward suddenly in her chair. She did not i