f his contraltos
in the dark at the bottom end of Beech Street.

"Then you hadn't told her!" murmured Eva Harracles.

"No!" said Richard, with a slight hesitation. "I was just going to begin
to tell her when you called."

Another woman might have pouted to learn that her lover had exhibited
even a little cowardice in informing his family that he was engaged to
be married. But Eva did not pout. She comprehended the situation, and
the psychology of the relations between brothers and sisters. (She
herself possessed both brothers and sisters.) All the courting had been
singularly secret and odd.

"I shall tell her to-morrow morning at breakfast," said Richard, firmly.
"Unless, after all, she isn't gone to bed when I get back."

By a common impulse they now returned towards Trafalgar Road.

"I say," said Richard, "what made you call?"

"I was passing," said the beloved. "And somehow I couldn't help it. Of
course, I knew it wasn't true about Mr Loggerheads. But I had to think
of something."

Richard was in ecstasy; had never been in such ecstasy.

"I say," he said again. "I suppose _you_ didn't put your finger against
the pendulum of that clock?"

"Oh, _no_!" she replied with emphasis.

"Well, I'm jolly glad it did stop, anyway," said Richard. "What a lark,
eh?"

She agreed that the lark was ideal. They walked down the road till a car
should overtake them.

"Do you think she suspects anything?" Eva asked.

"I'll swear she doesn't," said Richard, positively. "It'll be a bit of a
startler for the old girl."

"No doubt you've heard," said Eva, haltingly, "that Mr Loggerheads has
cast eyes on Mary."

"And do you think there's anything _in_ that?" Richard questioned
sharply.

"Well," she said, "I really don't know." Meaning that she decidedly
thought that Mary _had_ been encouraging advances from Mr Loggerheads.

"Well," said Richard, superiorly, "you may just take it from me that
there's nothing in it at all.... Ha!" He laughed shortly. He knew Mary.

Then they got on a car, and tried to behave as though their being
together was a mere accident, as though they had not become engaged to
one another within the previous twenty-four hours.

II

Immediately after the departure of Richard Morfe and Eva Harracles, his
betrothed, from the front door of the former, Mr Simon Loggerheads
arrived at the same front door, and rang thereat, and was a little
surprised, and also a little unnerved, when the door