cry overhead, and then the muffled
sound of some one moving about; and he went to the door, opened it and
passed out into the hall. He did not go upstairs, but waited in the
hall until Doctor Mayson came down, looking as rosy and serene and
unconcerned as ever.

"Well, Mr. Leith," he said, "you're a father. I congratulate you. You
wife has got through beautifully."

"Yes?"

"By the way, it's a boy."

"Yes, of course."

Doctor Mayson looked genuinely surprised.

"Why 'of course'? I don't quite understand."

"She knew it was going to be a boy."

The doctor smiled faintly.

"Women often have strange fancies at such times. I mean before they are
confined."

"But you see she was right. It is a boy."

"Exactly," returned the doctor, looking at his nails.

Dion saw the star falling above the hill of Drouva.

Did the Hermes know?

CHAPTER III

On the following Sunday afternoon Dion was able to fulfil his promise
to Daventry. Rosamund and the baby were "doing beautifully"; he was not
needed at home, so he set out with Daventry, who came to fetch him, to
visit Mrs. Willie Chetwinde in Lowndes Square.

When they reached the house Daventry said:

"Now for Mrs. Clarke. She's really a wonderful woman, Dion, and she's
got a delicious profile."

"Oh, it's that--"

"No, it isn't."

He gently pushed Mrs. Chetwinde's bell.

As they went upstairs they heard a soft hum of voices.

"Mrs. Clarke's got heaps of people on her side," whispered Daventry.
"This is a sort of rallying ground for the defense."

"Where's her child? Here?"

"No, with some relations till the trial's over."

The butler opened the door, and immediately Dion's eyes rested on
Mrs. Clarke, who happened to be standing very near to it with Esme
Darlington. Directly Dion saw her he knew at whom he was looking.
Something--he could not have said what--told him.

By a tall pedestal of marble, on which was poised a marble statuette
of Echo,--not that Echo who babbled to Hera, but she who, after her
punishment, fell in love with Narcissus,--he saw a very thin, very pale,
and strangely haggard-looking woman of perhaps thirty-two talking to
Esme Darlington. At first sight she did not seem beautiful to Dion.
He was accustomed to the radiant physical bloom of his Rosamund. This
woman, with her tenuity, her pallor, her haunted cheeks and temples, her
large, distressed and observant eyes--dark hazel in color under brown
eyebrows drawn with a precis