and refinement. There was a small Chippendale sideboard against the wall,
a round, gate-legged table on which stood a blue china bowl filled with
pink roses, a couple of luxurious easy-chairs, some old prints upon the
wall. On the sideboard was a basket, as yet unpacked, filled with
hothouse fruit, and on a low settee by the side of one of the easy-chairs
were a little pile of reviews, several volumes of poetry, and a couple of
library books. In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the
photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived
visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his
buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost
disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose
eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at it,
spellbound.

"Douglas!" he muttered. "Douglas!"

He flung his hat upon the table and for a moment his hand rested upon his
forehead. He was confronted with a mystery which baffled him, a mystery
whose sinister possibilities were slowly framing themselves in his mind.
While he stood there he was suddenly conscious of the sound of the
opening gate, brisk footsteps up the tiled way, the soft swirl of a
woman's skirt. The latch was raised, the door opened and closed. The
newcomer stood upon the threshold, gazing at him.

"Philip!" she exclaimed. "Why, Philip!"

There was a curious change in the girl's tone, from almost glad welcome
to a note of abrupt fear in that last pronouncement of his name. She
stood looking at him, the victim, apparently, of so many emotions that
there was nothing definite to be drawn either from her tone or
expression. She was a young woman of medium height and slim, delicate
figure, attractive, with large, discontented mouth, full, clear eyes and
a wealth of dark brown hair. She was very simply dressed and yet in a
manner which scarcely suggested the school-teacher. To the man who
confronted her, his left hand gripping the mantelpiece, his eyes filled
with a flaming jealousy, there was something entirely new in the hang of
her well-cut skirt, the soft colouring of her low-necked blouse, the
greater animation of her piquant face with its somewhat dazzling
complexion. His hand flashed out towards her as he asked his question.

"What does it mean, Beatrice?"

She showed signs of recovering herself. With a little shrug of the
shoulders she turned towards the do