sake, what is it?"

"Your poor father is dead. Oh, Beryl!"

Miss Van Tuyn stood quite still for a moment.

"My father--dead!" she thought.

She felt surprised. She felt shocked. But she was not conscious of
any real sorrow. She very seldom saw her father. Since he had married
again--he had married a woman with whom he was very much in love--his
strongly independent daughter had faded into the background of his life.
Beryl had not set her eyes upon him during the last eighteen months. It
was impossible that she could miss him much, a father with whom she had
spent for years so little of her time. She knew that she would not miss
him. Yet she had had a shock. After an instant she said:

"Thank you, Fanny. I shall be home very soon. Of course, I shall leave
the studio at once. Good-bye."

She hung up the receiver and went upstairs slowly. And as she went she
resolved not to say anything about what had happened to Dick Garstin.
He was incapable of expressing conventional sympathy, and would probably
say something bizarre which would jar on her nerves if she told him.

She found the two men standing together in the studio. Arabian had on
his overcoat and gloves, and was holding his hat and umbrella.

"It was only Fanny Cronin!" she said.

As she spoke she looked narrowly at Garstin. Could Fanny have told him
the news? The casual expression on his face set her mind at ease on that
point. She was certain that he knew nothing.

"I must go," she said.

"I will walk with you to a taxi if you kindly allow me," said Arabian,
getting her fur coat.

"Thank you!"

As he stood behind her helping her to get into the coat she was
conscious of a strange and terrible feeling of fear mingled with an
intense desire to give herself up to the power in this man. Was Craven
outside? Something in her hoped, almost prayed, that he might be. It was
surely the part of her that was afraid.

"Good-bye, Dick!" she said in an offhand voice.

"Good-bye!" he said. "Take care of her, Arabian."

She sent him a look full of intense and hostile inquiry. He met it with
a half-amused smile.

"I shall do better now," he said.

"Ah?" said Arabian, looking polite and imperturbable.

"Come along!" said Miss Van Tuyn. "It must be getting late."

As she spoke a clock in the room began striking five. For a moment
she felt confused and almost ill. Her brain seemed too full of rushing
thoughts for its holding capacity. Her head throbbed. Her le