rds in his haste. And then, "Don't write to me! I will find a
means," and, almost before she was aware of his movements, he had
snatched up his cap, and the room was empty. The curtain was torn aside;
the glass door stood open; beyond it the garden lay white in the light
of the moon.

"A trap?" Joan repeated his accusation in a perplexity. She turned and
she saw the door, the door behind her, which Escobar had faced, the door
into the hall, slowly open. There had been no turning of the handle, it
was unlatched before. Yet Joan had seen to it that it was shut before
ever she beckoned Mario Escobar into the room. Some one, then, had been
listening. Mario Escobar had seen the handle move, the door drawn ajar.
Joan saw it open now to its full width, and in the entrance Stella
Croyle.

CHAPTER XXVI

A FATAL KINDNESS

Joan picked up her cloak and arranged it upon her shoulders. She did not
give one thought to Stella, or even hear the words which Stella began
nervously to speak. Her secret appointment would come to light now in
any case. It would very likely cost her--oh, all the gold and glamour of
the world. It would be bandied about in gossip over the tea-tables, in
the street, at the Clubs, in the Press. Sir Chichester ought to be
happy, at all events. The thought struck her with a wry humour, and
brought a smile to her lips. He would accomplish his dream. Without
effort, without a letter or a telephone call, or a rebuff, he would have
such publicity as he could hardly have hoped for. "Who is that?" Joan
made up a little scene. "That? Oh, don't you know? That's Sir Chichester
Splay. You must have heard of Sir Chichester! Why, it was in his house
that the Whitworth girl, rather pretty but an awful fool, carried on
with the spy-man."

Joan was a little overstrung. All the while she was powdering her nose
in front of a mirror and removing as best she could the traces of tears,
and all the while Mrs. Croyle was stammering words and words and words
behind her. Joan regretted that Stella was not going to the Willoughbys'
ball. If she had been, she would probably be carrying some rouge in her
little hand-bag, and Joan might have borrowed some.

"Well, since you haven't got any with you, I must go," said Joan,
bursting suddenly into Stella's monologue. But she had caught a name
spoken just before Stella stopped in her perplexity at Joan's outbreak.

"Harry Luttrell!" Joan repeated. What in the world had Stella Croy