y: "I want you to do me a kindness."

She asked uneasily: "What is it, Lionel?"

"I want you to get Gifford to prevent the meeting which has been
arranged for to-morrow morning between Panton and the Home Office expert
called Spiller."

He waited a moment, then went on: "It was the summons to Panton which
put me on the track of--of this conspiracy." And Blanche felt that this
time Varick was speaking the truth.

She said, deprecatingly: "Mark would do a great deal to please me, but
I'm afraid he won't do that."

"I think he may," he answered, in a singular tone, "you may have a
greater power of persuasion than you know."

She made no answer to that, knowing well that Mark would never interfere
with regard to such a matter as this.

"Can you suggest any reason I can give, why we should be all going away
to-day?" she asked falteringly.

Without a moment's hesitation he answered: "You can say there has been
trouble among the servants, and that I should feel much obliged if I
could have the house cleared of all my visitors by to-night."

Then Blanche Farrow came to a sudden determination. "I will get them all
away to-day, Lionel, but I, myself, will stay till to-morrow morning."

For the first time during this strange, to her this unutterably painful
conversation, Varick showed a touch of real, genuine feeling. It was as
if a mask had fallen from his face.

He gripped her hand. "You're a brick!" he exclaimed. "I ought to tell
you to go away, too, but I won't be proud, Blanche. I'll accept your
kindness."

CHAPTER XXIII

There are hours in almost every life of which the memory is put away,
hidden, as far as may be, in an unfathomable pit. Blanche Farrow never
recalled to herself, and never discussed with any living being, the
hours which followed her talk with Lionel Varick.

Of the five people to whom she told the untrue tale so quickly and so
cleverly imagined by their host, only one suspected that she was not
telling the truth. That one--oddly enough--was Sir Lyon Dilsford. He
guessed that something was wrong, and in one sense he got near to the
truth--but it was such a very small bit of the truth!

Sir Lyon suspected that Varick had made an offer to Helen Brabazon, and
that she had refused him. But he was never to know if his suspicion had
been correct, for he was one of those rare human being who are never
tempted to ask indiscreet or unnecessary questions from even their
nearest and dearest.