"I don't like that at all," she said.

"Why? What do you think he means?"

"Mischief." She lowered her voice, for, it being visiting day at the
hospital, people were passing up and down the corridor. "Suppose he has
some of the people here in his power?"

"Blackmail--?" I glanced up at her sharply. "What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," she replied abruptly. Then she looked down and fingered her
wedding-ring. "I only said 'suppose.'"

A Sister appeared at the door of the ward and seeing us together paused
hoveringly.

"I rather think you're wanted," said I.

I left the hospital somewhat disturbed in mind. Summons to duty had cut
our conversation short; but I knew that no matter how long I had
cross-questioned Betty I should have got nothing further out of her.
She was a remarkably outspoken young woman. What she said she meant,
and what she didn't want to say all the cripples in the British Army
could not have dragged out of her.

I tried her again a few days later. A slight cold, aided and abetted by
a dear exaggerating idiot of a tyrannical doctor, confined me to the
house and she came flying in, expecting to find me in extremis. When
she saw me clothed and in my right mind and smoking a big cigar, she
called me a fraud.

"Look here," said I, after a while. "About Gedge--" again her brow
darkened and her lips set stiffly--"do you think he has his knife into
young Randall Holmes?"

I had worried about the boy. Naturally, if Gedge found the relations
between his daughter and Randall unsatisfactory, no one could blame him
for any outbreak of parental indignation. But he ought to break out
openly, while there was yet time--before any harm was done--not nurse
some diabolical scheme of subterraneous vengeance. Betty's brow
cleared, and she laughed. I saw at once that I was on a wrong track.

"Why should he have his knife into Randall? I suppose you've got
Phyllis in your mind."

"I have. How did you guess?"

She laughed again.

"What other reason could he have? But how did you come to hear of
Randall and Phyllis?"

"Never mind," said I, "I did. And if Gedge is angry, I can to some
extent sympathize with him."

"But he's not. Not the least little bit in the world," she declared,
lighting a cigarette. "Gedge and Randall are as thick as thieves, and
Phyllis won't have anything to do with either of them."

"Now, my dear," said I. "Now that you're married, become a real womanly
woman and fill my empty