replied Alma, meeting her look
with the satisfaction of defiance.

Sibyl approached one step.

'You knew it?' she asked, very softly and deliberately, searching the
passionate face with eyes as piercing as they were beautiful.

'With certainty.'

'I used to think you intelligent,' said Sibyl, 'but I fancy you don't
perceive what this "certainty" of yours suggests.' She paused, with a
curling lip. 'Let me put you on your guard. You have very little
command of your primitive feelings, and they bring you into danger. I
should be sorry to think that an unpleasant story I have heard
whispered was anything more than ill-natured scandal, but it's as well
to warn you that _other_ people have a taste for that kind of gossip.'

'I'm well aware of it,' flashed the listener. 'And that was the very
reason why I came to ask you where Mrs. Strangeways is hiding.'

'Mrs. Rolfe, you are aware of too many things. In your position I
should be uneasy.'

'I will leave you to enjoy your _own_ uneasiness,' returned Alma, with
a contemptuous laugh. 'You must have enough of it, without imagining
that of others.'

She half turned. Sibyl again took one step forward, and spoke with ever
so little tremor in the even voice.

'You have understood me, I hope?'

'Oh, quite. You have shown plainly how--afraid you are. Good morning,
Mrs. Carnaby.'

Baker Street station being so near, Alma was tempted to go straightway
and demand from the Leach sisters an explanation of what she had heard;
they, too, seemed to be behaving treacherously. But she was unwilling
to miss the luncheon hour at home, for Hughie would speak of it to his
father, and so oblige her to make false excuses. Besides, she had
suffered more than enough indignity (though not unavenged!), and it was
better to summon the sisters to her presence.

On reaching home, she at once sent them an ordinary invitation, but of
the briefest. In the evening she received Dymes's acknowledgment of the
cheque. Next day she wrote to him, a few formal lines, requesting that
he would let her know Mrs. Strangeways' address as soon as he had
discovered it.

Dora Leach came to Gunnersbury alone. She was in distress and worry,
for her father had fallen ill again, and the doctors doubted whether he
would ever be fit to resume work; it had just dawned upon Dora that the
breadwinner of the family deserved rather more consideration than he
had been wont to receive, and that his death might involve unp