"But she passed you just now without even a glance of recognition, and
I thought you told me at the club this afternoon that all your knowledge
of his evil ways came from her. Besides, she looks at least twenty years
younger than he does."

Francis, who had been watching his glass filled with champagne, raised
it to his lips and drank its contents steadily to the last drop.

"I can only tell you what I know, Andrew," he said, as he set down the
empty glass. "The woman who is with him now is the woman who spoke to me
outside the Old Bailey this afternoon. We went to a tea-shop together.
She told me the story of his career. I have never listened to so
horrible a recital in my life."

"And yet they are here together, dining tete-a-tete, on a night when it
must have needed more than ordinary courage for either of them to have
been seen in public at all," Wilmore pointed out.

"It is as astounding to me as it is to you," Francis confessed. "From
the way she spoke, I should never have dreamed that they were living
together."

"And from his appearance," Wilmore remarked, as he called the waiter
to bring some cigarettes, "I should never have imagined that he was
anything else save a high-principled, well-born, straightforward sort of
chap. I never saw a less criminal type of face."

They each in turn glanced at the subject of their discussion. Oliver
Hilditch's good-looks had been the subject of many press comments during
the last few days. They were certainly undeniable. His face was a little
lined but his hair was thick and brown. His features were regular, his
forehead high and thoughtful, his mouth a trifle thin but straight and
shapely. Francis gazed at him like a man entranced. The hours seemed to
have slipped away. He was back in the tea-shop, listening to the woman
who spoke of terrible things. He felt again his shivering abhorrence of
her cold, clearly narrated story. Again he shrank from the horrors from
which with merciless fingers she had stripped the coverings. He seemed
to see once more the agony in her white face, to hear the eternal pain
aching and throbbing in her monotonous tone. He rose suddenly to his
feet.

"Andrew," he begged, "tell the fellow to bring the bill outside. We'll
have our coffee and liqueurs there."

Wilmore acquiesced willingly enough, but even as they turned towards
the door Francis realised what was in store for him. Oliver Hilditch had
risen to his feet. With a courteous little