sations against Varick--accusations of cruelty and neglect of so
absurd a nature that they refuted themselves. Miss Pigchalke's behaviour
was the more monstrous that she had already received the first fifty
pounds of the hundred-pound pension her friend's widower had arranged to
give her.

In a will made before her marriage, the late Mrs. Varick had left her
companion two thousand pounds, and though the legacy had been omitted
from her final will, Varick had of his own accord suggested that he
should allow Miss Pigchalke a hundred a year. She had begun by sending
back the first half-yearly cheque; but she had finally accepted it!
To-night he reminded himself with satisfaction that the second fifty
pounds had already been sent her, and that this time she would evidently
make no bones about keeping the money.

Making a determined effort, he chased her sinister image from his
thoughts, and turned his mind to the still attractive woman who was
about to act as hostess to his Christmas party.

His keen face softened as he thought of Blanche Farrow. Poor, proud,
well-bred and pleasant, poor only in a relative sense, for she was the
only unmarried daughter of an Irish peer whose title had passed away to
a distant cousin. Miss Farrow could have lived in comfort and in
dignity on what income she had, but for one inexplicable failing--the
more old-fashioned and severe of her friends and relatives called it a
vice.

Soon after she had come into the enjoyment of her few hundreds a year,
some rich, idle acquaintance had taken Blanche to Monte Carlo, and
there, like a duck to water, she had taken to play! Henceforth
gambling--any kind of gambling--had become her absorbing interest in
life. It was well indeed that what fortune she had was strictly settled
on her sisters' children, her two brothers-in-law being her trustees.
With one of them, who was really wealthy, she had long ago quarrelled.
With the other, now a widower, with only a life interest in his estate,
she was on coldly cordial terms, and sometimes, as was the case now,
acted as chaperon to his only child, her niece and namesake, Bubbles
Dunster.

Blanche Farrow never begged or borrowed. When more hard hit than usual,
she retired, alone with her faithful maid, to some cheap corner of the
Continent; and as she kept her money worries to herself, she was well
liked and popular with a considerable circle.

Such was the human being who in a sense was Lionel Varick's only