n hard
cash between you and me?"

"The cost of bringing wheat down to its normal figure," Wingate answered.

"I couldn't do it if I would," Phipps argued. "There's Skinflint
Martin--he won't part with a bushel. I'm not alone in this. Come, I have
my cheque book in my pocket. You can fight the B. & I. to the death, if
you will--commercially, politically, anyhow--but I want my nephew."

Wingate threw open the door.

"There was a girl once," he reminded him, "my ward, who drowned herself.
To hell with your nephew, Phipps!"

Passion for a moment made once more a man of Phipps. His eyes blazed.

"And to hell with you!--Hypocrite!--Adulterer!" he shouted.

Wingate's fist missed the point of his adversary's chin by less than a
thought. Phipps went staggering back through the open door into the
corridor and stood leaning against the wall, half dazed, his hand to his
cheek. Wingate looked at him contemptuously for a moment, every nerve in
his body aching for the fight. Then he remembered.

"Get home to your kennel, Phipps," he ordered.

Then he slammed the door and locked it.

CHAPTER XVIII

"Another strange face," Sarah remarked, looking after the butler who had
just brought in the coffee. "I thought you were one of those women,
Josephine, who always kept their servants."

"I do, as a rule," was the quiet reply, "only sometimes Henry
intervenes. If there is one thing that the modern servant dislikes, it
is sarcasm, and sarcasm is Henry's favourite weapon when he wants to be
really disagreeable. Generally speaking, I think a servant would rather
be sworn at."

"You seem to have made a clean sweep this time."

Josephine stirred her coffee thoughtfully.

"Henry has been having one of his bad weeks," she said. "He has been
absolutely impossible to every one. He threatened to give every servant
in the house notice, the other day, because his bell wasn't answered, so
I took him at his word. We've no one left except the cook, and she
declined to go. She has been with us ever since we were married. All the
same, I wouldn't have had any one but you and Jimmy to dinner to-night.
I wasn't at all sure how things would turn out. Besides, it isn't every
one I'd care to ask into this dungeon of a room."

"I was wondering why we were here, Josephine," Sarah remarked, looking
around her. "It used to be one of your hospital rooms, surely?"

Josephine nodded.

"The other rooms want turning out, dear. I knew you would