f the wanted man. Jack turned to another
part of the paper, and dismissed the paragraph from his mind.

His partner, however, was to bring the matter up at lunch. Norwood
Asylum was near Dulwich, and Mr. Rennett was pardonably concerned.

"The womenfolk at my house are scared to death," he said at lunch. "They
won't go out at night, and they keep all the doors locked. How did your
interview with the commissioner go on?"

"We parted the worst of friends," said Jack, "and, Rennett, the next man
who talks to me about Jean Briggerland's beautiful face is going to be
killed dead through it, even though I have to take a leaf from her book
and employ the grisly Jaggs to do it."

Chapter XIV

That night the "grisly Jaggs" was later than usual. Lydia heard him
shuffling along the passage, and presently the door of his room closed
with a click. She was sitting at the piano, and had stopped playing at
the sound of his knock, and when Mrs. Morgan came in to announce his
arrival, she closed the piano and swung round on the music stool, a look
of determination on her delicate face.

"He's come, miss."

"And for the last time," said Lydia ominously. "Mrs. Morgan, I can't
stand that weird old gentleman any longer. He has got on my nerves so
that I could scream when I think of him."

"He's not a bad old gentleman," excused Mrs. Morgan.

"I'm not so worried about his moral character, and I dare say that it is
perfectly blameless," said Lydia determinedly, "but I have written a
note to Mr. Glover to tell him that I really must dispense with his
services."

"What's he here for, miss?" asked Mrs. Morgan.

Her curiosity had been aroused, but this was the first time she had
given it expression.

"He's here because----" Lydia hesitated, "well, because Mr. Glover
thinks I ought to have a man in the house to look after me."

"Why, miss?" asked the startled woman.

"You'd better ask Mr. Glover that question," said Lydia grimly.

She was beginning to chafe under the sense of restraint. She was being
"school-marmed" she thought. No girl likes the ostentatious protection
of the big brother or the head mistress. The soul of the schoolgirl
yearns to break from the "crocodile" in which she is marched to church
and to school, and this sensation of being marshalled and ordered about,
and of living her life according to a third person's programme, and that
third person a man, irked her horribly.

Old Jaggs was the outward and v