offer would not be accepted.

"I am afraid it is useless to ask you to stop the night with us," he
said; and Westray had his rejoinder ready:

"No; I must leave Lytchett by the seven five train. I have ordered the
fly to wait."

He had named the last train available for London, and Lord Blandamer saw
that his visitor had so arranged matters, that the interview could not
be prolonged for more than an hour.

"Of course, you _could_ catch the night-mail at Cullerne Road," he said.
"It is a very long drive, but I sometimes go that way to London
myself."

His words called suddenly to Westray's recollection that night walk when
the station lights of Cullerne Road were seen dimly through the fog, and
the station-master's story that Lord Blandamer had travelled by the mail
on the night of poor Sharnall's death. He said nothing, but felt his
resolution strengthened.

"The gallery will be the most convenient place, perhaps, to unpack the
picture," Lord Blandamer said; and Westray at once assented, gathering
from the other's manner that this would be a spot where no interruption
need be feared.

They went up some wide and shallow stairs, preceded by a footman, who
carried the picture.

"You need not wait," Lord Blandamer said to the man; "we can unpack it
ourselves."

When the wrappings were taken off, they stood the painting on the narrow
shelf formed by the top of the wainscot which lined the gallery, and
from the canvas the old lord surveyed them with penetrating light-grey
eyes, exactly like the eyes of the grandson who stood before him.

Lord Blandamer stepped back a little, and took a long look at the face
of this man, who had been the terror of his childhood, who had darkened
his middle life, who seemed now to have returned from the grave to ruin
him. He knew himself to be in a desperate pass. Here he must make the
last stand, for the issue lay between him and Westray. No one else had
learned the secret. He understood and relied implicitly on Westray's
fantastic sense of honour. Westray had written that he would "take no
steps" till the ensuing Monday, and Lord Blandamer was sure that no one
would be told before that day, and that no one had been told yet. If
Westray could be silenced all was saved; if Westray spoke, all was lost.
If it had been a question of weapons, or of bodily strength, there was
no doubt which way the struggle would have ended. Westray knew this
well now, and felt heartily ashamed