ld like one," he said, and at the sound of his voice
Stella Ballantyne turned around in her chair.

"You!" she cried and the cry was pitched in a tone of pleasure and
welcome.

"Of course you know Mrs. Ballantyne," said Hazlewood. He saw Stella rise
from her chair and hold out her hand to Thresk with the colour aflame in
her cheeks.

"You are surprised to see me again," she said.

Thresk took her hand cordially. "I am delighted to see you again,"
he replied.

"And I to see you," said Stella, "for I have never yet had a chance of
thanking you"; and she spoke with so much frankness that even Pettifer
was shaken in his suspicions. She turned upon Mr. Hazlewood with a
mimicry of indignation. "Do you know, Mr. Hazlewood, that you have done a
very cruel thing?"

Mr. Hazlewood was utterly discomfited by the failure of his plot, and
when Stella attacked him so directly he had not a doubt but that she had
divined his treachery.

"I?" he gasped. "Cruel? How?"

"In not telling me beforehand that I was to meet so good a friend of
mine." Her face relaxed to a smile as she added: "I would have put on my
best frock in his honour."

Undoubtedly Stella carried off the honour of that encounter. She had at
once driven the battle with spirit onto Hazlewood's own ground and left
him worsted and confused. But the end was not yet. Mr. Hazlewood waited
for his son Richard, and when Richard appeared he exclaimed:

"Ah, here's my son. Let me present him to you, Mr. Thresk. And there's
the family."

He leaned back, with a smile in his eyes, watching Henry Thresk. Robert
Pettifer watched too.

"The family?" Thresk asked. "Is Mrs. Ballantyne a relation then?"

"She is going to be," said Dick.

"Yes," Mr. Hazlewood explained, still beaming and still watchful.
"Richard and Stella are going to be married."

A pause followed which was just perceptible before Thresk spoke again.
But he had his face under control. He took the stroke without flinching.
He turned to Dick with a smile.

"Some men have all the luck," he said, and Dick, who had been looking at
him in bewilderment, cried:

"Mr. Thresk? Not the Mr. Thresk to whom I owe so much?"

"The very man," said Thresk, and Dick held out his hand to him gravely.

"Thank you," he said. "When I think of the horrible net of doubt and
assumption in which Stella was coiled, I tell you I feel cold down my
spine even now. If you hadn't come forward with your facts--"

"Yes," Thresk inte