no farewell between him and
his departing visitor, no sign of intelligence in his inscrutable face.

"Presuming that the disappearance of Mr. Phipps, Mr. Rees and Lord
Dredlinton is accounted for by this supposed journey to the North,"
he ventured, "when should you imagine that they might be communicating
with me?"

"About dawn to-morrow," Wingate replied. "You will be here."

"I never leave," was the quiet answer. "About dawn to-morrow?"

"Or before."

Josephine asked the same question in a different manner when Wingate
entered her little sitting room a few hours later.

"They are obstinate?" she enquired curiously.

He sipped the tea which she had handed to him.

"Very," he admitted, "yet, after all, why not? If we succeed, it is, at
any rate, the end of their private fortunes, of Phipps' ambitions and
your husband's dreams of wealth."

"So much the better," she declared sadly. "More money with Henry has only
meant a greater eagerness to get rid of it."

A companionship which had no need of words seemed to have sprung up
between them. They sat together for some minutes without speech, minutes
during which the deep silence which reigned throughout the house seemed
curiously accentuated. Josephine shivered.

"I shall never know what happiness is," she declared, "until I have left
this house--never to return!"

"That will not be long," he reminded her gravely.

She placed her hand on his.

"It is full of the ghosts of my sorrows," she went on. "I have known
misery here."

"And I one evening of happiness," he said, smiling.

Her eyes glowed for a moment, but she was disturbed, tremulous, agitated.

"I listen for footsteps in the streets," she confessed. "I am afraid!"

"Needlessly," he assured her. "I know for a fact that Shields is off
the scent."

"But he is not a fool," she answered hastily.

Wingate's smile was full of confidence.

"Dear," he said, "I do not believe that you have anything to fear. There
have been no loose ends left. Behind your front door is safety."

"The man Shields--I only saw him for a few minutes, but he impressed me,"
she sighed.

"Shields is, without doubt, a capable person," Wingate admitted, "but he
could only succeed in this case by blind guessing. Stanley Rees was
brought into this house through the mews, without observation from any
living person. Phipps, when he received that supposed message from you,
was only too anxious to come the same way. They left their