----" he muttered, hoarsely.

"Oh, for God's sake, don't do that!" broke in Dene, with contemptuous
impatience. "Clear your mind of that idea. I'm playing the giddy-goat
not for your sake, my man; but--but for your wife's, for Miriam's."

"You're crossing to-night?" asked Heyton, hesitatingly, fearfully. "If
there's anything I can do to--to prove my gratitude----"

"You couldn't prove what doesn't exist," said Dene, with a laugh.
"You're incapable of gratitude. You hate me like poison, and, if it
wasn't for the risk to yourself, you'd like to throw up that window,
call for the police, and give me away." He paused a moment, and looked
the bent, cowardly figure up and down, from toe to crown. "You don't
mean to say that you were going to offer me money? Not really?" He
laughed, and at the laugh Heyton's face crimsoned with shame and rage.
"That would be too funny. I'm off. Remember what I've said. Treat Miriam
well, and you've seen and heard the last of me; let me hear a word--But
I've told you that already; and you're not likely to forget it. A coward
like you will think of his skin before anything else."

Heyton's teeth closed on his under-lip and he glanced at the window;
Dene saw the glance and understood it; with a gesture of infinite scorn
he sauntered slowly to the door, Heyton following him with clenched
hands, the veins swelling in his forehead, his face livid.

As the door closed behind Dene, Heyton sprang towards the bell; his
finger touched it, but he did not press it, and, with an oath, he sank
into his chair and mopped his face.

Five minutes later, the woman whom Celia had seen in the corridor
entered the room. She was a pretty, graceful woman, little more than a
girl; but the beauty of the face was marred by a weak mouth and chin.
She was exquisitely dressed, her fingers were covered with rings, and
diamonds glittered on her snowy neck. Her face was pale, and her eyes
were swollen with weeping; and it was with something like a sob that she
said, as she stood at the table and looked down at the sullen, ghastly
face of her husband:--

"Someone has been here--just gone; I heard a footstep; I know it.
Derrick has been here."

He would have lied to her if he had thought she would have believed the
lie.

"Yes," he said. "He has just gone. He--he came to say good-bye."

"Good-bye!" she repeated, her brows knitting with perplexity and
trouble. "Is he going? Where? Why? Didn't you tell him that Mr. Brand