anded her in.

"May I not be the judge of that?" he begged. "Giving depends upon the
recipient, you know. You have given me more happiness within this last
half-hour than I have had since we parted in France."

Some instinct of her younger days brought happiness into her laugh, a
provocative gleam into her soft eyes.

"You are very easily satisfied," she murmured.

He laughed back again, but though he opened his lips to speak, the words
remained unsaid. Something warned him that here was a woman passing
through something like a crisis in her life, and that a single false step
on his part might be fatal. He stood hat in hand and watched the taxicab
turn up Park Lane.

CHAPTER III

There was a little flutter of excitement in the offices of Messrs.
Kendrick, Stone, Morgan and Company when, at a few minutes after eleven
the following morning, Wingate descended from a taxicab, pushed open the
swing doors of the large general office and enquired for Mr. Kendrick.
Without a moment's delay he was shown into Roger Kendrick's private room,
but the little thrill caused by his entrance did not at once pass away.
It was like the visit of a general to Divisional Headquarters. Action of
some sort seemed to be in the air. Ideas of big dealings already loomed
large in the minds of the little army of clerks. Telephones were handled
longingly. Those of the firm who were members of the Stock Exchange
abandoned any work of a distracting nature and held themselves ready for
a prompt rush across the street.

Even Roger Kendrick, as he shook hands with his client, was conscious of
a little thrill of expectation. Wingate was a man who brought with him
almost a conscious sense of power. Carefully, but not overcarefully
dressed, muscular, with a frame like steel, eyes keen and bright,
carrying himself like a man who knows himself and his value, John Wingate
would have appeared a formidable adversary in any game in which he chose
to take a hand. Whatever his present intentions were, however, he seemed
in no hurry to declare himself. The two men spoke for a few minutes on
outside subjects. Wingate referred to the garden party of the afternoon
before, led the conversation with some skill around to the subject of
Josephine Dredlinton, and listened to what the other man had to say.

"Every one is sorry for Lady Dredlinton," Kendrick pronounced. "Why she
married Dredlinton is one of the mysteries of the world. I suppose it was
the fata