onsiderably lately."

Willy Cameron flushed.

"I feel rather like a meddler, sir."

"Better go up and wash," Howard said. "I'll go up with you."

It happened, therefore, that it was in Howard Cardew's opulent
dressing-room that Howard first spoke to Willy Cameron of Akers' death,
pacing the floor as he did so.

"I haven't told her, Cameron." He was anxious and puzzled. "She'll have
to be told soon, of course. I don't know anything about women. I don't
know how she'll take it."

"She has a great deal of courage. It will be a shock, but not a grief.
But I have been thinking--" Willy Cameron hesitated. "She must not feel
any remorse," he went on. "She must not feel that she contributed to it
in any way. If you can make that clear to her--"

"Are you sure she did not?"

"It isn't facts that matter now. We can't help those. And no one can
tell what actually led to his change of heart. It is what she is to
think the rest of her life."

Howard nodded.

"I wish you would tell her," he said. "I'm a blundering fool when it
comes to her. I suppose I care too much."

He caught rather an odd look in Willy Cameron's face at that, and
pondered over it later.

"I will tell her, if you wish."

And Howard drew a deep breath of relief. It was shortly after that he
broached another matter, rather diffidently.

"I don't know whether you realize it or not, Cameron," he said, "but
this thing to-day might have been a different story if it had not been
for you. And--don't think I'm putting this on a reward basis. It's
nothing of the sort--but I would like to feel that you were working with
me. I'd hate like thunder to have you working against me," he added.

"I am only trained for one thing."

"We use chemists in the mills."

But the discussion ended there. Both men knew that it would be taken
up later, at some more opportune time, and in the meantime both had one
thought, Lily.

So it happened that Lily heard the news of Louis Akers' death from Willy
Cameron. She stood, straight and erect, and heard him through, watching
him with eyes sunken by her night's vigil and by the strain of the day.
But it seemed to her that he was speaking of some one she had known long
ago, in some infinitely remote past.

"I am sorry," she said, when he finished. "I didn't want him to die. You
know that, don't you? I never wished him--Willy, I say I am sorry, but I
don't really feel anything. It's dreadful."

Before he could catch her she