elieve it. Will you tell me why you propose to do these things?"

She had worked herself up to utter recklessness.

"Because of _everything_," she spat forth. "Because I'm in a
rage--because I'm sick of her and her duchesses. And I'm most sick of
you hovering about her as if she were a princess of the blood and you
were her Grand Chamberlain. Why don't you marry her yourself--baby and
all! Then you'll be sure there'll be another Head of the House of
Coombe!"

She knew then that she had raved like a fishwife--that, even though
there had before been no fishwives in Mayfair, he saw one standing
shrilling before him. It was in his eyes and she knew it before she had
finished speaking, for his look was maddening. It enraged her even
further and she shook in the air the hand with the big purple amethyst
ring, still clutching the end of the bedizened purple scarf. She was
intoxicated with triumph--for she had reached him.

"I will! I will!" she cried. "I will--to-morrow!"

"You will not!" his voice rang out as she had never heard it before. He
even took a step forward. Then came the hurried leap of feet up the
narrow staircase and Owen Delamore flung the door wide, panting:

"You told me to dash in," he almost shouted. "They're coming! We can
rush round to the Sinclairs'. They're on the roof already!"

She caught the purple scarf around her and ran towards him, for at this
new excitement her frenzy reached its highest note.

"I will! I will!" she called back to Coombe as she fled out of the room
and she held up and waved at him again the hand with the big amethyst.
"I will, to-morrow!"

* * * * *

Lord Coombe was left standing in the garish, crowded little drawing-room
listening to ominous sounds in the street--to cries, running feet and
men on fleeing bicycles shouting warnings as they sped at top speed and
strove to clear the way.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

It was one of the raids which left hellish things behind it--things
hushed with desperate combined effort to restrain panic, but which
blighted the air people strove to breathe and kept men and women
shuddering for long after and made people waken with sharp cries from
nightmares of horror. Certain paled faces belonged to those who had seen
things and would never forget them. Others strove to look defiant and
cheerful and did not find it easy. Some tried to get past policemen to
certain parts of the city and some, getting past,