they would be down at the turning.
He stood at the window, waiting. If only that fellow did not come in!
Through the partition wall he could hear him still tramping up and down
the dining-room. What a long time a minute was! Three had gone when he
heard the dining-room door opened, and Fiorsen crossing the hall to
the front door. What was he after, standing there as if listening? And
suddenly he heard him sigh. It was just such a sound as many times,
in the long-past days, had escaped himself, waiting, listening for
footsteps, in parched and sickening anxiety. Did this fellow then really
love--almost as he had loved? And in revolt at spying on him like this,
he advanced and said:

"Well, I won't wait any longer."

Fiorsen started; he had evidently supposed himself alone. And Winton
thought: 'By Jove! he does look bad!'

"Good-bye!" he said; but the words: "Give my love to Gyp," perished on
their way up to his lips.

"Good-bye!" Fiorsen echoed. And Winton went out under the trellis,
conscious of that forlorn figure still standing at the half-opened
door. Betty was nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning.
His mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation. Round the corner, he
picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi,
journeyed on at speed. He had said he would explain in the cab, but the
only remark he made was:

"You'll all go down to Mildenham to-morrow."

And Betty, who had feared him ever since their encounter so many years
ago, eyed his profile, without daring to ask questions. Before he
reached home, Winton stopped at a post-office, and sent this telegram:

"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."

It salved a conscience on which that fellow's figure in the doorway
weighed; besides, it was necessary, lest Fiorsen should go to the
police. The rest must wait till he had talked with Gyp.

There was much to do, and it was late before they dined, and not till
Markey had withdrawn could they begin their talk.

Close to the open windows where Markey had placed two hydrangea
plants--just bought on his own responsibility, in token of silent
satisfaction--Gyp began. She kept nothing back, recounting the whole
miserable fiasco of her marriage. When she came to Daphne Wing and
her discovery in the music-room, she could see the glowing end of her
father's cigar move convulsively. That insult to his adored one seemed
to Winton so inconceivable that, for a m