her of me or of things at large.

"You didn't suppose he was to be kept in jail for life?"

At that moment I caught sight of Flora de Barral at the junction of the
two streets. Then some vehicles following each other in quick succession
hid from my sight the black slight figure with just a touch of colour in
her hat. She was walking slowly; and it might have been caution or
reluctance. While listening to Fyne I stared hard past his shoulder
trying to catch sight of her again. He was going on with positive heat,
the rags of his solemnity dropping off him at every second sentence.

That was just it. His wife and he had been perfectly aware of it. Of
course the girl never talked of her father with Mrs. Fyne. I suppose
with her theory of innocence she found it difficult. But she must have
been thinking of it day and night. What to do with him? Where to go?
How to keep body and soul together? He had never made any friends. The
only relations were the atrocious East-end cousins. We know what they
were. Nothing but wretchedness, whichever way she turned in an unjust
and prejudiced world. And to look at him helplessly she felt would be
too much for her.

I won't say I was thinking these thoughts. It was not necessary. This
complete knowledge was in my head while I stared hard across the wide
road, so hard that I failed to hear little Fyne till he raised his deep
voice indignantly.

"I don't blame the girl," he was saying. "He is infatuated with her.
Anybody can see that. Why she should have got such a hold on him I can't
understand. She said "Yes" to him only for the sake of that fatuous,
swindling father of hers. It's perfectly plain if one thinks it over a
moment. One needn't even think of it. We have it under her own hand. In
that letter to my wife she says she has acted unscrupulously. She has
owned up, then, for what else can it mean, I should like to know. And so
they are to be married before that old idiot comes out . . . He will be
surprised," commented Fyne suddenly in a strangely malignant tone. "He
shall be met at the jail door by a Mrs. Anthony, a Mrs. Captain Anthony.
Very pleasant for Zoe. And for all I know, my brother-in-law means to
turn up dutifully too. A little family event. It's extremely pleasant
to think of. Delightful. A charming family party. We three against the
world--and all that sort of thing. And what for. For a girl that
doesn't care twopence for him."

The