wants a few words with him. If you'll
undertake to come there, I'll let you see what sort of a man Mr. Oliver
Trent is, and then you can judge for yourself whether or no he is a fit
husband for Miss Kenyon, or a fit lover for Miss Lesley Brooke."

Caspar raised his hand hastily as if to entreat silence. "Tell me where
you live," he said shortly, "and the hour when he will be there."

"Half-past nine o'clock this evening, sir. The place--oh, you know the
place well enough: it is in Whitechapel."

She gave him the address. He cast a keen, sharp glance at her face as he
took it down. "Not a pleasant neighborhood," he said gravely. "May I ask
why you have taken a room in that locality?"

She shook her head. "I did not take it," she said. "My husband took it
before I found him, and I was obliged to stay. Francis is ill--I cannot
get him away."

"Can I do anything to help----" Caspar was beginning but she interrupted
him with almost surprising vehemence.

"Oh, no, no. I would not take anything from you. I did not come for
that. I came to see if I could save Miss Lesley and Miss Kenyon from
misery, not to beg--either for myself or him."

The earnestness of her tone took from Mr. Brooke a certain uneasy
suspicion which had begun to steal over him: a suspicion that she was
using him as a tool for her own ends, that her real motives had been
concealed from him. Even when she had gone--and she went without making
any attempt to see Lesley or Miss Brooke--he could not rid himself
altogether of this suggestion; for with her sad voice no longer echoing
in his ears, with her deep-set eyes looking no longer into his face, he
found it easier to doubt and to suspect than to place implicit faith in
the story that she had told him.

Lesley had heard of Kingston's reappearance, and was very much surprised
to find that she was not called upon to interview her runaway attendant.
Still more was she surprised when at last she heard the front door shut,
and learned from Sarah that the woman had gone without a word. So much
amazed was she, that shortly before dinner she stole into her father's
study and attempted to cross-examine him, though with small result.

"Father, Sarah says that Kingston has been to see you."

"Yes, she has," said Caspar, briefly. He was writing away as if for dear
life, with his left hand grasping his beard, and his pipe lying unfilled
upon the table--two signs of dire haste, as Lesley had by this time
learned