w. I'm glad I intercepted that
letter to the mater. I haven't any sort of feeling about opening it.
_I'm_ going to see to this. If we can get hold of her before it's too
late, she must go to Muriel for a bit; I must keep it from the governor
as long as I can--until I get back and can tackle him. He'll be so
furious that he'll give it away all round. He wouldn't think about the
scandal."

"Pray God we shan't be too late," said Jim. "What a fool I've been,
Dick! I took it all for granted. I never thought that she wasn't just as
fond of me as I was of her."

Dick looked at him. "Well, I suppose that's all over now," he said, "a
girl who behaves like that!"

Jim turned away, and said nothing, and by and by they went up to bed.

They drove over to Bathgate the next morning and caught the seven
o'clock train to Ganton, where they picked up the London express. Alone
in a first-class smoking-carriage they laid their plans. "I have an idea
that is worth trying before we do anything else," said Jim. "When we
were travelling together that fellow told me of some rooms in Bloomsbury
he always went to when he could get them."

"Do you know the address?"

"Yes," said Jim, and gave it. "He said they were the best rooms in
London, and made me write down the address. I found it last night."

"Why on earth didn't you say so before?"

"I had forgotten. I didn't suppose I should ever want to take rooms in
Bloomsbury."

"It's a chance. We'll go there first. If we draw blank, we will go to
his club, and then to the Geographical Society. We'll find him
somewhere."

"We can't do anything to him," said Jim.

"I'm not thinking much of him," Dick confessed. "It would be a comfort
to bruise him a bit--though I dare say he'd be just as likely to bruise
me. He's got an amazing cheek; but, after all, a man plays his own hand.
If she had behaved herself properly he couldn't have done anything."

He flicked the ash of his cigar on to the carpet and looked carelessly
out of the window, but turned his head sharply at the tone in which Jim
said, "If I could get him alone, and it couldn't do her any harm
afterwards, I'd kill him." And he cursed Mackenzie with a deliberate,
blasphemous oath.

Dick said nothing, but looked out of the window again with an expression
that was not careless.

Jim spoke again in the same low voice of suppressed passion. "I told him
about her when I was travelling. I don't know why, but I did. And after
you dined