tly obeyed. Sir Alfred glanced around the room. There was no
possible hiding-place, not the slightest chance of being overheard.

"What about it, Ronnie?"

"We did our share," Granet answered. "Collins was there at the Dormy
House Club. We got the signal and we lit the flare. They came down
to within two or three hundred feet, and they must have thrown twenty
bombs, at least. They damaged the shed but missed the workshop. The
house caught fire, but they managed to put that out."

"You escaped all right, I'm glad to see?"

"They got Collins," Granet said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper.
"He was shot by my side. They caught me, too. I've been in a few tight
corners but nothing tighter than that. Who do you think was sent down
from the War Office to hold an inquiry? Thomson--that fellow Thomson!"

The banker frowned.

"Do you mean the man who is the head of the hospitals?"

"Supposed to be," Granet answered grimly. "I am beginning to
wonder--Tell me, you haven't heard anything more about him, have you?"

"Not a word," Sir Alfred replied. "Why should I?"

"Nothing except that I have an uncomfortable feeling about him," Granet
went on. "I wish I felt sure that he was just what he professes to be.
He is the one man who seems to suspect me. If it hadn't been for Isabel
Worth, I was done for--finished--down at that wretched hole! He had me
where I couldn't move. The girl lied and got me out of it."

Sir Alfred drummed for a moment with his fingers upon the table.

"I am not sure that these risks are worth while for you, Ronnie," he
said.

The young man shrugged his shoulders. His face certainly seemed to have
grown thinner during the last few days.

"I don't mind it so much abroad," he declared. "It seems a different
thing there, somehow. But over here it's all wrong; it's the atmosphere,
I suppose. And that fellow Thomson means mischief--I'm sure of it."

"Is there any reason for ill-feeling between you two?" the banker
inquired.

Granet nodded.

"You've hit it, sir."

"Miss Conyers, eh?"

The young man's face underwent a sudden change.

"Yes," he confessed. "If I hadn't begun this, if I hadn't gone so far
into it that no other course was possible, I think that I should have
been content to be just what I seem to be--because of her."

Sir Alfred leaned back in his chair. He was looking at his nephew as a
man of science might have looked at some interesting specimen.

"Well," he said, "I suppos