friendless. I was
friendless before Bernadine came, and latterly we have been nothing to
one another. Now, I suppose, I shall know what it is to be an outcast
once more. Did you ever hear my history, I wonder?"

Peter shook his head.

"Never, Baroness," he replied. "I understood, I believe, that your
marriage----"

"My husband divorced me," she confessed, simply. "He was quite within
his rights. He was impossible. I was very young and very sentimental.
They say that Englishwomen are cold," she added. "Perhaps that is so.
People think that I look cold. Do you?"

Sogrange suddenly opened the door of the car, in which they were already
seated. She leaned back and half closed her eyes.

"It is rather a long ride," she said, "and I am worn out. I hope you
will not mind, but for myself I cannot talk when motoring. Smoke, if it
pleases you."

"Might one inquire as to our exact destination?" Sogrange asked.

"We go beyond Hitchin, up the Great North Road," she told him again.
"The house is called the High House. It stands in the middle of a heath,
and I think it is the loneliest and most miserable place that was ever
built. I hate it and am frightened in it. For some reason or other it
suited Bernadine, but that is all over now."

The little party of three lapsed into silence. The car, driven carefully
enough through the busy streets, gradually increased its pace as they
drew clear of the suburbs. Peter leaned back in his place, thinking.
Bernadine was dead! Nothing else would have convinced him so utterly of
the fact as that simple sentence in the _Daily Telegraph_, which had
been followed up by a confirmation and a brief obituary notice in all
the evening papers. Curiously enough, the fact seemed to have drawn a
certain spice out of even this adventure; to point, indeed, to a certain
monotony in the future. Their present enterprise, important though it
might turn out to be, was nothing to be proud of. A woman, greedy for
gold, was selling her lover's secrets before the breath was out of his
body. Peter turned in his cushioned seat to look at her. Without doubt
she was beautiful to one who understood, beautiful in a strange,
colourless, feline fashion, the beauty of soft limbs, soft movements, a
caressing voice with always the promise beyond of more than the actual
words. Her eyes now were closed, her face was a little weary. Did she
really rest, Peter wondered. He watched the rising and falling of her
bosom, the qu