lirtations without ever
experiencing a feeling either deep or lasting.

Now, for the first time, in this beautiful waif of the big city he had
found a mixture of warmth and coldness, of straightforward simplicity
and boldness, which opened his eyes as to there being in her sex an
attraction he had previously denied. He felt as he looked at her that he
wanted her; that he could not go away and forget her in the presence of
the next pretty face he happened to see.

This shabbily dressed girl, with the shiny seams in her black frock and
the rusty hat, inspired him with respect, with something like reverence.

In his way he had been in love many, many times. Now for the first time
he worshiped a woman.

When the carriage stopped at the park gate of The Beeches, Max sprang
out, and without waiting to answer the hurried questions of Carrie, who
had awakened with a start, he ran across the grass and up the slope to
the house.

It was nine o'clock, and, when the door was opened by Bartram, Max came
face to face with Doreen, who was entering the hall on her way to the
breakfast-room.

"Why, Max, is it you? What a strange time to arrive! And where have you
been? You look as if you'd been up all night!" cried she, and she ran
forward to kiss him, and swinging him round to the light, examined him,
with an expression of amazement and horror.

"I have been up all night," said he, briefly. "I've driven all the way
from London--"

"What!"

"And--and I've brought some one with me--some one who is ill, who is in
trouble. Some one--"

A cry broke from her lips. She had grown quite white, and her hands had
dropped to her sides.

She understood.

"Dudley!" she whispered. "Where is he? Why haven't you brought him in?"

"He is at the gate. Where is my father? I must speak to him first, or to
mother."

Mrs. Wedmore herself, having been informed by Bartram of the arrival of
her son, now came out of the breakfast-room to meet him. In a few words
he informed her of the circumstances, adding, as he was bound to do,
that there was a possibility that the police might come to make
inquiries, if not to arrest Dudley. But Doreen, who insisted on hearing
everything, overruled the faint objection which Mrs. Wedmore made, and
determined to have him brought in before her father could learn anything
about it.

Max, therefore, went down to bring the carriage up to the door, and
Dudley, having been roused into a half-conscious condition,