can give him a room where he can sit, and you
can give him a bit of bread and cheese, and a glass of beer, and he'll
not bother you."

Lydia was amused now. It was absurd that Jack Glover should imagine she
needed a guardian at all, but if he insisted, as he did, it would be
better to have somebody as harmless as the unattractive Jaggs.

"What time will he come?"

"At about ten o'clock every night, and he'll leave you at about seven in
the morning. Unless you wish, you need never see him," said Jack.

"How did you come to know him?" she asked curiously.

"I know everybody," said the boastful young man, "you mustn't forget
that I am a lawyer and have to meet very queer people."

He gathered up his papers and put them into his little bag.

"And now what are your plans for to-day?" he demanded.

She resented the self-imposed guardianship which he had undertaken, yet
she could not forget what she owed him.

By some extraordinary means he had kept her out of the Meredith case and
she had not been called as a witness at the inquest. Incidentally, in as
mysterious a way he had managed to whitewash his partner and himself,
although the Law Society were holding an inquiry of their own (this the
girl did not know) it seemed likely that he would escape the consequence
of an act which was a flagrant breach of the law.

"I am going to Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's to tea," she said.

"Mrs. Cole-Mortimer?" he said quickly. "How do you come to know that
lady?"

"Really, Mr. Glover, you are almost impertinent," she smiled in spite of
her annoyance. "She came to call on me two or three days after that
dreadful morning. She knew Mr. Meredith and was an old friend of the
family's."

"As a matter of fact," said Jack icily, "she did not know Meredith,
except to say 'how-do-you-do' to him, and she was certainly not a friend
of the family. She is, however, a friend of Jean Briggerland."

"Jean Briggerland!" said the exasperated girl. "Can't you forget her?
You are like the man in Dickens's books--she's your King Charles's head!
Really, for a respectable and a responsible lawyer, you're simply eaten
up with prejudices. Of course, she was a friend of Mr. Meredith's. Why,
she brought me a photograph of him taken when he was at Eton."

"Supplied by Jean Briggerland," said the unperturbed Jack calmly, "and
if she'd brought you a pair of socks he wore when he was a baby I
suppose you would have accepted those too."

"Now you are being rea