th.

Happily, that delightful old town was sufficiently familiar to him in
earlier days that he was now able to supplement the general knowledge
of its past gleaned already by the girl's reading. He halted in front
of the Welsh Gate on Monnow Bridge, and told her that although the
venerable curiosity dates back to 1270 it is nevertheless the last
defensive work in Britain in which serious preparations were made for
civil war, as it was expected that the Chartists would march from
Newport to attack Monmouth Jail in 1839.

"Six hundred years," mused Cynthia aloud. "If there are sermons in
stones what a history is pent in these!"

"And how greatly it would differ from the accepted versions," laughed
Medenham.

"Do we never know the truth, then?"

"Oh, yes, if we are actually mixed up in some affair of worldwide
importance, but that is precisely the reason why the actors remain
dumb."

Oddly enough, this was the first of Medenham's utterances that Mrs.
Devar approved of.

"Evidently you have moved in high society, Fitzroy," she chimed in.

"Yes, madam," he said. "More than once, when in a hurry, I have run
madly through Mayfair."

"Oh, nonsense!" she cried, resenting the studied civility of the
"madam" and ruffled by the quip, "you speak of Mayfair, yet I don't
suppose you really know where it is."

"I shall never forget where Down Street is, I assure you," he said
cheerfully.

"And pray, why Down Street in particular?"

"Because that is where I met Simmonds, last Wednesday, and arranged to
take on his job."

"In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street," cooed Cynthia.

After that the Mercury crossed the Monnow, and Mrs. Devar muttered
something about the mistake one made when one encouraged servants to
be too familiar. But Cynthia was not to be repressed. She was bubbling
over with high spirits, and amused herself by telling Medenham that
Henry V. was born at Monmouth and afterwards won the battle of
Agincourt--"scraps of history not generally known," she confided to
him.

From the back of the car Mrs. Devar watched them with a hawklike
intentness that showed how thoroughly those "forty winks" snatched
while in the Wyndcliff had restored her flagging energies. Though
it was absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a
millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give,
would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur
of a hired car, this exper