a moan in a chair.

"But Miranda denies that she lent it," said Sir Chichester in
exasperation.

"I asked her to deny it."

"Why?"

Joan's eyes for one swift instant swept round to Harry Luttrell. She
swayed. Then she answered:

"I can't tell you."

Sir Chichester rose to his feet and tore his sheet of foolscap across.

"God bless my soul!" he said to himself rather than to any of that
company. "God bless my soul!" He moved away from the table. "I think
I'll go and see Millie. Yes! I'll consult with Millie," and he ascended
the stairs heavily, a very downcast and bewildered man. It seemed as
though old age had suddenly found him out, and bowed his shoulders and
taken the spring from his limbs. Something of this he felt himself, for
he was heard to mutter as he passed along the landing to his wife's
sitting-room:

"I am not the man I was. I feel difficulties more"; and so he passed
from sight.

Harry Luttrell turned then to Joan.

"Miss Whitworth," he began and got no further. For the blood rushed up
into the girl's face and she exclaimed in a trembling voice:

"Colonel Luttrell, I trust that you are not going to ask me any
questions."

"Why?" he asked, taken aback by the little touch of violence in her
manner.

"Because, at twelve o'clock last night, I refused you the right to ask
them."

The words were not very generous. They were meant to hurt and they did.
They were meant to put a sharp, quick end to any questioning; and in
that, too, they succeeded. Harry Luttrell bowed his head in assent and
went out into the garden. For a moment afterwards Martin Hillyard, Joan
and Jenny Prask stood in silence; and in that silence once more Martin's
eyes fell upon the key of Stella's room. The earth had moved since the
interrogatory had begun and the sunlight now played upon the key and
transmuted it into a bright jewel. Martin Hillyard stepped forward and
lifted it up. A faint, a very faint light, as from the far end of a long
tunnel began to glimmer in his mind.

"I must think it out," he whispered to himself; and at once the key
filled all his thoughts. He turned to Joan:

"Will you watch, please?" He opened the drawer in the table and laid the
key inside it. Then he closed the drawer and locked it and took the key
of the drawer out of the lock.

"You see, Joan, what I have done? That key is locked in this drawer, and
I hold the key of the drawer. It may be important."

Joan nodded.

"I see what you