ny. One prefers to be
underhand."

"Don't you think it's time you stopped fooling?" Tabs spoke in a
conversational tone without temper. "There's Mrs. Lockwood to be
considered; she may be here at any moment. It's no good coming this
returned prisoner trick; all the prisoners in Germany were returned
shortly after the Armistice. Eight months have elapsed."

"All right. Have it your own way."

The stranger ceased to wander and sat himself down at Maisie's end of
the couch. Pulling out his cigarette-case, he offered it to Tabs. "Have
a gasper?---- You don't need to refuse because of Maisie. If she's the
Maisie she used to be, she won't object.---- Well, if you won't, I
will."

Tabs noticed that his hand trembled in holding the match. The man was a
bundle of nerves; he was only maintaining this display of coolness with
an effort. Whatever the purpose of his bold intrusion, it was not
social, as he had pretended.

"I don't like any man to think me a liar." The man spoke slowly between
puffs at his cigarette. "You think it's all bunkum that I'm fresh out of
Germany, but it isn't. Do you see that?" He ran his finger across the
gash in his forehead. "That and the ill-treatment I received in the
prison-camps made me go wuzzy. The only fact about myself that I could
remember in all those years was Maisie. So it's natural that I should
come to see her first. I wasn't sure of my own identity until a month
ago. I suppose I was released at the Armistice, but for seven out of the
past eight months I must have wandered in rags over Central Europe.
However, all's well that ends well, and here I am."

"But you knew that she'd remarried," Tabs objected suspiciously; "you
asked me if I were Gervis."

"A friend of Pollock's told me that," he explained. "Gervis was
excusable. But this Lockwood fellow's the third. It's a bit thick! She
certainly has been going it." He looked up suddenly. "I've been doing
all the talking. What about yourself?"

Tabs crossed the room and opened one of the long French windows which
led out into the rockery. The golden afternoon had faded into early
evening and a refreshing coolness was in the air. When he came back, he
seated himself at the other end of the couch. "Just to show that there's
no ill-feeling, I'll accept one of your gaspers, if you'll allow
me.----There's nothing for me to explain. My name is Lord Taborley and
I'm a friend of Mrs. Lockwood. There's nothing else."

The stranger leaned fo