"I had hoped," he spoke very softly, "that it was about yourself."

She flashed round upon him almost angrily. "Why do you utter these set
speeches to me?" she demanded. And then before he could recover from his
astonishment to make any answer she had resumed a normal manner, and was
talking quickly.

She told him of Una's premonitions about Dick. Told him, in short, what
it was that Una desired to talk to him about.

"You bade her come to me?" he said.

"Of course. After your promise to me."

He was silent and very thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder that Una
needed to be told that she had in me a friend," he said slowly.

"I wonder to whom she would have gone on her own impulse?"

"To Count Samoval," Miss Armytage informed him.

"Samoval!" he rapped the name out sharply. He was clearly angry. "That
man! I can't understand why O'Moy should suffer him about the house so
much."

"Terence, like everybody else, will suffer anything that Una wishes."

"Then Terence is more of a fool than I ever suspected."

There was a brief pause. "If you were to fail Una in this," said Miss
Armytage presently, "I mean that unless you yourself give her the
assurance that you are ready to do what you can for Dick, should the
occasion arise, I am afraid that in her present foolish mood she may
still avail herself of Count Samoval. That would be to give Samoval a
hold upon her; and I tremble to think what the consequences might be.
That man is a snake--a horror."

The frankness with which she spoke was to Tremayne full evidence of her
anxiety. He was prompt to allay it.

"She shall have that assurance this very evening," he promised.

"I at least have not pledged my word to anything or to any one. Even
so," he added slowly, "the chances of my services being ever required
grow more slender every day. Una may be full of premonitions about Dick.
But between premonition and event there is something of a gap."

Again a pause, and then: "I am glad," said Miss Armytage, "to think that
Una has a friend, a trustworthy friend, upon whom she can depend. She is
so incapable of depending upon herself. All her life there has been some
one at hand to guide her and screen her from unpleasantness until she
has remained just a sweet, dear child to be taken by the hand in every
dark lane of life."

"But she has you, Miss Armytage."

"Me?" Miss Armytage spoke deprecatingly. "I don't think I am a very able
or experienced guide. Besides,