ing about? My stenographer? What stenographer?"

It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business
connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He
particularised.

"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were
dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee."

"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he
exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when she
came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and
appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am
not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened
when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a
dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when--"--here Jno. Peters, modest to the core,
turned vividly pink--"when she told me--she told me that I was the only
man she loved!"

Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.

"Sweet spirits of nitre! What!"

"Those were her exact words."

"Five!" ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. "By the great horn
spoon, number five!"

Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred
from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from
his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him
capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.

"Wilhelmina!"

Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to her
that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her
father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did
not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.

"What is it, father?"

Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in
after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before
her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and
there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her excited
senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a
matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed
chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes,
though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno.
Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She
screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno
Peters had been one