cies.

Certainly the time had come for him to do something. But what?--if his
wife was going to strike such attitudes in the very face of decency?
Certainly a husband in these days was without honour in his own
household.

His uneasiness had produced a raging thirst. He punched an electric
button with his fleshy thumb, and prowled around, waiting. Nobody came;
he punched again, and looked at his watch. It astonished him to find
the hour was three o'clock in the morning. That discovery, however, only
appeared to increase his thirst. He opened the hall door, prepared to
descend into the depths of the house and raid a sideboard; and as he
thrust his heavy head out into the lighted corridor his eyes fell upon
two figures standing at the open door of a bedroom. One was Siward; that
was plain. Who was the girl he had kissed? One of the maids? Somebody's
wife? Who?

Every dull pulse began to hammer in Mortimer's head. In his excitement
he stepped half-way into the corridor, then skipped nimbly back, closing
his door without a sound.

"Sylvia Landis, by all that's holy!" he breathed to himself, and sat
down rather suddenly on the edge of the bed.

After a while he rose and crept to the door, opened it, glued his eyes
to the crack, in time to catch a glimpse of Siward entering his own
corridor alone.

And that night, Mortimer, lying awake in bed, busy with schemes, became
conscious of a definite idea. It took shape and matured so suddenly that
it actually shocked his moral sense. Then it scared him.

"But--but that is blackmail!" he whispered aloud. "A man can't do that
sort of thing. What the devil ever put it into my head? ... And there
are men I know--women, too--scoundrelly blackguards, who'd use that
information somehow; and make it pay, too. The scoundrels!"

He squirmed down among the bedclothes with a sudden shiver; but the
night had turned warm.

"Scoundrels!" he said, with milder emphasis. "Blackmailers! Contemptible
pups!"

He fell asleep an hour later, muttering something incoherent about
scoundrels and blackmail.

And meanwhile, in the darkened house, from all round came the noise
of knocking on doors, sounds of people stirring--a low voice here and
there, lights breaking out from transoms, the thud of rubber-shod heels,
the rattle of cartridges from the echoing gun-room. For the guests at
Shotover were awaking, lest the wet sky, whitening behind the east,
ring with the whimpering wedges of wild-fowl