ed. "She has a remarkable memory," she said
dryly. "And also the devil's own impudence, Lionel." And then she told
him of the few words she had overheard at dinner of the winter Miss
Burnaby had spent in Austria a matter of forty years ago.

"Yes, that's all very well! But it doesn't account for her absolutely
correct description of my mother, or--or--"

"Yes?" said his companion sharply.

"Well--of her mention of the word 'arbour.' The last time I saw my
mother alive was in the arbour of our horrible little garden at
Bedford."

"That," said Blanche thoughtfully, "was, I admit, pure thought-reading.
Good-night, Lionel."

Varick remained standing at the foot of the staircase for quite a long
while.

Yes, it had been thought-reading, of course. But very remarkable, even
so. It was years since he had thought of that last painful talk with his
mother. She had warned him very seriously of certain--well,
peculiarities of his character. The long-forgotten words she had used
suddenly leapt into his mind as if written in letters of fire: "Your
father's unscrupulousness, matched with my courage, make a dangerous
combination, my boy."

As he lit a cigarette, his hand shook a little, but the more he thought
of it, the more he told himself that for all that had occurred with
relation to himself to-night there was an absolutely natural
explanation.

Take the second figure Bubbles had described? It was obviously that of
the woman on whom he had allowed his mind to dwell uneasily, intensely,
this afternoon. She was his only enemy--if you could call the crazy
creature who had been poor Milly's companion an enemy.

The odious personality of the absurdly named Julia Pigchalke was still
very present to him as he turned and joined his men guests in the
beautiful camber-roofed and linen-panelled room known as the hall. She
was the one fly, albeit a very small fly, in the ointment of his deep
content.

CHAPTER V

It was a good deal more than an hour later--in fact nearer twelve than
eleven o'clock--when young Donnington got up from the comfortable chair
where he had been ensconced, and put down the book which he had been
reading.

All the other men of the party, with the exception of old Mr.
Burnaby--who had gone to bed for good after his dramatic bolt from the
drawing-room--had disappeared some time ago. But Donnington had stayed
on downstairs, absorbed in a curious, privately printed book containing
the history of