ied.

"I suppose so," she admitted drily. "You told it very cleverly."

He looked her in the eyes.

"My profession helped me to be a good witness," he said. "As for the
gist of my evidence, that was between my conscience and myself."

"Your conscience?" she repeated. "Are there really men who possess such
things?"

"I hope you will discover that for yourself some day," he answered.
"Tell me your plans? Where are you living?"

"For the present with my father in Curzon Street."

"With Sir Timothy Brast?"

She assented.

"You know him?" she asked indifferently.

"Very slightly," Francis replied. "We talked together, some nights ago,
at Soto's Restaurant. I am afraid that I did not make a very favourable
impression upon him. I gathered, too, that he has somewhat eccentric
tastes."

"I do not see a great deal of my father," she said. "We met, a few
months ago, for the first time since my marriage, and things have been a
little difficult between us--just at first. He really scarcely ever puts
in an appearance at Curzon Street. I dare say you have heard that he
makes a hobby of an amazing country house which he has down the river."

"The Walled House?" he ventured.

She nodded.

"I see you have heard of it. All London, they tell me, gossips about the
entertainments there."

"Are they really so wonderful?" he asked.

"I have never been to one," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I have
spent scarcely any time in England since my marriage. My husband, as I
remember he told you, was fond of travelling."

Notwithstanding the warm spring air he was conscious of a certain
chilliness. Her level, indifferent tone seemed to him almost abnormally
callous. A horrible realisation flashed for a moment in his brain. She
was speaking of the man whom she had killed!

"Your father overheard a remark of mine," Francis told her. "I was at
Soto's with a friend--Andrew Wilmore, the novelist--and to tell you the
truth we were speaking of the shock I experienced when I realised that
I had been devoting every effort of which I was capable, to saving the
life of--shall we say a criminal? Your father heard me say, in rather
a flamboyant manner, perhaps, that in future I declared war against all
crime and all criminals."

She smiled very faintly, a smile which had in it no single element of
joy or humour.

"I can quite understand my father intervening," she said. "He poses
as being rather a patron of artistically-perpetrated c