vulets of perspiration began to trickle down from under the preposterous
cap, converting the dust that filled the haggard lines of his thin face
into mud. "An' payin' our respects." His eye slewed appealingly at his
companion, asking as plainly as an eye can, "What price that?" And the
glance that shot back from the dusty shadow of the exhausted peonies
answered, "Not bad by 'arf--for you!"

Lynette smiled at the little Cockney couple. The surprise that had checked
the beating of her heart had passed. It was pleasant to see these faces
from Harley Street. She answered:

"I understand. My husband has given you a holiday. Is he well?" She
flushed, realising that it was pain to have to ask others for the news of
him that he had denied her. "I mean because he has not written.... I have
been feeling rather anxious. Was he quite well when you left?"

"'Was he----'? Yes, 'm!" W. Keyse shot out the affirmative with such
explosive suddenness that the hand upon his arm must have nipped hard.

"I am so glad!" Lynette turned to the young woman in the ulster, whose
face betrayed no guilty knowledge of the pinch. She was small, and pale,
and gritty, and her blue eyes had red rims to them from the fatigue of the
journey, or some other cause. But they were honest and clear, and not
unpretty eyes, looking out from a forest of dusty yellowish fringe,
deplorably out of curl. Yet a fringe that had associations for Lynette,
reaching a long way from Harley Street, and back to the old days at
Gueldersdorp before the Siege.

"Surely I know you? I must have known you at Gueldersdorp." She added as
Mrs. Keyse's eyes said "Yes": "You used to be a housemaid at the Convent.
How strange that I should not have remembered it until now! And your
husband.... I do not remember ever having seen him before he came to us at
Harley Street. But his name comes back to me in connection with a
letter"--she knitted her brows, chasing the vague, fleeting memory--"a
love-letter that was sent to Miss Du Taine inside a chocolate-box, just
when school was breaking up. It was you who smuggled the box in!"

"To oblige, bein' begged to by Keyse as a fyvour. 'E didn't know 'is own
mind--them d'ys!" explained Mrs. Keyse, sweeping her husband's scorching
countenance with a glance of withering scorn.

"Nor did you," retorted W. Keyse, stung to defiance. "Walkin' out with a
Dopper you was--if it comes to that." He spun round, mid-ankle deep in
sand, to finish. "An' you'