Philippa made no reply. Richard opened the door and lingered upon the
threshold. Helen rose to her feet.

"I am coming, Dick," she called out cheerfully. "There's a gorgeous fire
in the gun room, and two big easy-chairs, and we'll have just the time I
have been looking forward to all day. You'll tell me things, won't you?"

She looked very sweet as she came towards him, her eyes raised to him,
her face full of the one happiness. He passed his arm around her waist.

"I'll try, dear," he said. "You won't be lonely, Philippa?"

"I'll come and disturb you when I am," she promised.

The door closed. She stood gazing down into the fire, listening to their
footsteps as they crossed the hall.

CHAPTER XXXI

Lessingham stood for a moment by the side of the car from which he had
just descended, glanced at the huge tires and the tins of petrol lashed
on behind.

"Nothing more you want, chauffeur?" he asked.

"Nothing, sir," was the almost inaudible reply.

"You have the route map?"

"Yes, sir, and enough petrol for three hundred miles."

Lessingham turned away, pushed open the gate, and walked up the drive
of Mainsail Haul. Decidedly it was the moment of his life. He was
hard-pressed, as he knew, by others besides Griffiths. A few hours now
was all the start he could reasonably expect. He was face to face with a
very real and serious danger, which he could no longer ignore, and from
which escape was all the time becoming more difficult. And yet all
the emotionalism of this climax was centered elsewhere. It was from
Philippa's lips that he would hear his real sentence; it was her answer
which would fill him once more with the lust for life, or send him on in
his rush through the night for safety, callous, almost indifferent as to
its result.

He walked up the drive, curiously at his ease, in a state of suspended
animation, which knew no hope and feared no disappointment. Just before
he reached the front door, the postern gate in the wall on his left-hand
side opened, and Philippa stood there, muffled up in her fur coat,
framed in the faint and shadowy moonlight against the background of
seabounded space. He moved eagerly towards her.

"I heard the car," she whispered. "Come and sit down for a moment. It
isn't in the least cold, and the moon is just coming up over the sea.
I came out," she went on, as he walked obediently by her side, "because
the house somehow stifled me."

She led him to a seat. Below, th