le disconcerted.

"I don't see what business you can have here till we've talked things
out and laid our plans," he declared. "I am secretary of the committee
appointed to meet and confer with you. Peter Dale is chairman, of
course. There are five of us. We expected you 'round to-night. You
got our telegram at Liverpool?"

"Certainly," Maraton admitted. "It did not, however, suit my plans to
accept your invitation. I had a message from Mr. Foley, begging me to
see him to-night. I have been to his house."

The young man distinctly scowled.

"So Foley's been getting at you, has he?"

Maraton's face was inscrutable but there was, for a moment, a dangerous
flash in his eyes.

"I had some conversation with him this evening.

"What did he want?" Graveling asked bluntly.

Maraton raised his eyebrows. He turned to the girl.

"Do you know Mr. Graveling?"

The young man scowled. Julia smiled but there was a shadow of trouble
in her face.

"Naturally," she replied. "Mr. Graveling and I are fellow workers."

"Yes, we are that," the young man declared pointedly, "that and a little
more, I hope. To tell you the truth, I followed Miss Thurnbrein here,
and I think she'd have done better to have asked for my escort--the
escort of the man she's going to marry--before she came here alone at
this time of night." Mr. Graveling's ill-humour was explained. He was
of the order of those to whom the ability to conceal their feelings is
not given, and he was obviously in a temper. Maraton's face remained
impassive. The girl, however, stood suddenly erect. There was a vivid
spot of colour in her cheeks.

"You had better keep to the truth, Richard Graveling!" she cried
fearlessly. "I have never promised to marry you, or if I have, it was
under certain conditions. You had no right to follow me here."

The young man opened his lips and closed them again. He was scarcely
capable of speech. The very intensity of his anger seemed to invest the
little scene with a peculiar significance. The girl had the air of one
who has proclaimed her freedom. The face of the man who glared at her
was distorted with unchained passions. In the background, Maraton stood
with tired but expressionless countenance, and the air of one who
listens to a quarrel between children, a quarrel in which he has no
concern.

"It is not fair," Julia continued, "to discuss a purely personal matter
here. You can walk home with me if you care to, Richard Graveling, but