n do most incredibly
foolish things. You do frequently fail to say what you should say. But
even with those advantages, I doubt if it would be possible for you to
incur so much suffering and suspicion as you describe. I shall have to
think out some other little martyrdom for you."

CHAPTER IX

1

Looking out of his window at the office in the afternoon, Luke Sharper
saw a motor-car stop in front of the draper's opposite. Lady Tyburn
got out and entered the shop. So she was back.

Putting on his hat, so far as his agitated ears would permit, Luke
rushed out into the street, crossed the road, and met her as she came
out.

"Jona," he panted.

"Lukie, at last," she gasped.

"You were not long in the shop!"

"Just the same length that I am outside. I have been there three times
to-day. Standing there, looking up at your window. Every time I bought
a yard of elastic. Do you want any elastic?"

"No, thank you. Will you have a cup of tea?"

Emotion would not permit her to speak. But she nodded and got into the
car. He followed her. On the way to the confectioner's neither of them
spoke a word.

At the tea-room the following conversation took place: "Tea?"

"Please."

"Milk?"

"Thanks."

"Sugar?"

"No."

"Buns?"

"One."

And then they sat and gazed at one another, slowly champing buns in
which they took no interest whatever. After twenty minutes Lady Tyburn
said: "My chauffeur has had no tea. He must drive to Gallows and have
tea at once. Will you come too?"

"As far as the gates," he said. "I'll walk back. I'm not coming in."

"Do," she said. "Bill has borrowed a panther from the Mammoth Circus,
and they're having larks with it in the billiard-room."

Luke shook his head. "I don't like panthers," he said wearily. "I
don't like anything much. Mabel looks like a panther sometimes."

During the twenty minutes' drive up to Gallows neither of them spoke.

When they reached the gate, Jona said: "Better come up to the house
and finish our talk."

"No," said Luke; "stay here a little. There's something I must say to
you. I've been trying to say it for the last hour. It gets stuck. I
shall pull it out somehow."

Lady Tyburn sent the car away, and they sat down on the trunk of a
fallen tree. He sat on one side, and she on the other, back to back.
They could not bear to look one another in the face. Presently she
said:

"You're trembling, Lukie. I can feel it. Trembling. Like a jelly."

"Y