impulse led her to
hail the driver.

"Take me to Cavendish Square," she said.

"What number, miss?" he asked.

"No number. Just drive slowly round the square and return to the Savoy
Hotel."

He eyed her curiously, but made no comment. Soon she was speeding up
Regent Street, bent on gratifying the truly curious whim of seeing
what manner of residence it was that Fitzroy occupied in London. Fate
had failed in her weaving during the previous evening, but on the
present occasion she combined warp and weft without any error.

The cab was crawling past the Fairholme mansion, and Cynthia's
astonished eyes were regarding its style and general air of
magnificence with some degree of heart-sinking--for it did then
seem to be true that Mrs. Devar's original estimate of Fitzroy was
correct--when a man sprang out of another taxi in front of the door,
and glanced at her while in the very act of running up the steps.
Recognition was mutual. Dale muttered under his breath a wholly
unjustifiable assumption as to his future state, halted dubiously,
and then signaled to Cynthia's driver to stop. He strode towards her
across the road, and thrust his head through the open window.

"Of course, miss," he said roughly, "you don't know what has
happened?"

"No," she said, too greatly surprised to resent his strange manner.

"Well," he growled, "somebody's been nearly killed on your account,
that's all."

"Somebody," she repeated, and her lips went white.

"Yes, you ought to guess well enough who it is. He and that rotten
Frenchman fought a duel this morning on the sands near Calais, and
Marinny as good as murdered him."

Dale's heart was sore against her as the cause of his master's plight,
but even in his own distress he was quick to see the shrinking terror
in the girl's eyes.

"Are you speaking of Mr. Fitzroy?" she demanded. "Are you telling the
truth? Oh, for Heaven's sake, man, tell me what you mean."

"I mean what I say, miss," said he more softly. "I have left him
almost at death's door in an hotel at Calais. That damned Frenchman
... I beg your pardon, miss, but I can't contain myself when I think
of him--ran a sword through him this morning, and would have killed
him outright if he hadn't been stopped by some other gentlemen. And
now, there he is, a-lying in the hotel, with a doctor and a nurse
trying to coax the life back into him, while I had to scurry back here
to tell his people."

Some women might have shrieked