tuously stripped off his heavy
coat. Tudor shut the door, and turned round. He surveyed his visitor's
evening-dress with a touch of contempt. He himself was clad in an
ancient smoking-jacket, much frayed at the cuffs; and his
carpet-slippers were so trodden down at the heel that he could only just
manage to shuffle along in them.

"Go into the consulting-room!" he said. "There's a light there."

Piers strode in, and waited for him. Seen by the light of the gas that
burned there, his face was pale and set in lines of iron determination.
His eyes shone out of it like the eyes of an infuriated wild beast.

"Do you know what I've come for?" he said, as Tudor shambled into the
room.

Tudor looked him over briefly and comprehensively. "No, I don't," he
said. "I hoped I'd seen the last of you."

His words were as brief as his look. It was obvious that he had no
intention of wasting time in mere courtesy.

Piers' lips tightened at his tone. He looked full and straight at the
baffling glasses that hid the other man's contemptuous eyes.

"I've come for a reckoning with you," he said.

"Really?" said Tudor. He glanced again at the clock. "Rather an unusual
hour, isn't it?"

Piers passed the question by. He was chafing on his feet like a caged
animal. Abruptly he came to the point.

"I told you the other day that I wouldn't put up with any interference
from you. I didn't know then how far your interference had gone. I do
know now. This scheme to get me out of the country was of your
contrivance."

Fiercely he flung the words. He was quivering with passionate
indignation. But the effect on Tudor was scarcely perceptible. He only
looked a little colder, a little more satirical, than was his wont.

"Well?" he said. "What of it?"

Piers showed his teeth momentarily. His hands were hard gripped behind
him, as though he restrained himself by main force from open violence.

"You don't deny it?" he said.

"Why should I?" Tudor's thin lips displayed a faint sneer. "I certainly
advised your grandfather to go away, and I think the advice was sound."

"It was--from your point of view." A tremor of fierce humour ran through
Piers' speech. "But plans--even clever ones--don't always turn out as
they should. This one for instance--what do you think you are going to
gain by it?"

"What do you mean?" Tudor stood by the table facing Piers, his attitude
one of supreme indifference. He seemed scarcely to feel the stormy
atmosphere