wrangling and let's get home.
I'm starving."

"I shall have something to say to you to-morrow morning," Hamar
remarked, in an undertone, to Lilian Rosenberg.

"And I to you," was the furious reply. "I shall not forget the
disrespectful way in which you have just spoken of me, in alluding to
the scent."

She signalled to a taxi, and giving Kelson a friendly good-night,
jumped into it and was speedily whirled away.

On the whole, the evening had been a disappointment. She had wanted to
see the Unknown--the awful thing that had inspired Kelson and his
colleagues with such unmitigated horror--and instead she had seen only
an obsessed policeman--a cataleptic "copper"--who, had he not spoken
in a strangely uncanny voice, would certainly have seemed to her
absolutely ordinary.

With regard to Hamar's displeasure, she was not in the slightest
degree disturbed. He would never dare say anything to her. And after
all that had occurred he would never venture to "sack her." All the
same she hated him. There was just sufficient in her conduct to make
the name he had called her by applicable--therefore her bitterest
wrath and indignation were aroused against him. He had behaved
unpardonably. She could kill him for it.

"I'll just show him," she said to herself, "what that uncivil tongue
of his can do. He shall see that it can do him infinitely more harm
than all Kelson's love-making. For one thing I'll spoil his chances
with Gladys Martin; and--I wonder if I could make use of what I know
about him, as a means of getting friendly again with Shiel. At all
events I'll try."

With this object in view she went round to Shiel's lodgings, and was
informed by the landlady that Shiel was ill.

"Nothing serious I hope?" she asked.

"It has been," the landlady replied, "but he is better now. It all
came through his not taking proper care of himself."

"May I see him, do you think?" Lilian Rosenberg inquired.

"I don't know," the landlady grumbled. "He's in a very touchy mood--no
one can do nothing right for him. But maybe there won't be any harm in
your trying," she added, her eyes wandering to the half-crown in
Lilian Rosenberg's fingers.

She opened the door somewhat wider, and Lilian Rosenberg entered.
Shiel was immensely surprised to see her. Illness and solitude had
very considerably subdued him, and though at first he showed some
resentment, he speedily softened under her sympathetic solicitation
for his health. She put h