very conscious of the fact that G.J.
was a fine gentleman. In the afternoon, and again to-night--at first,
he had taken her for a mere girl; but as she halted under a lamp to
hold a door for him at the entrance to the upper stairs, he perceived
that it must have been a long time since she was a girl. Often had he
warned himself that the fashion of short skirts and revealed stockings
gave a deceiving youthfulness to the middle-aged, and yet nearly every
day he had to learn the lesson afresh.

He was just expecting to be shown into the boudoir when Robin stopped
at a very small door.

"Her ladyship and Mrs. Carlos Smith are out on the roof. This is the
ladder," she said, and illuminated the ladder.

G.J. had no choice but to mount. Luckily he had kept his hat. He put
it on. As he climbed he felt a slight recurrence of the pain in his
side which he had noticed in St. Martin's Street. The roof was a very
strange, tempestuous place, and insecure. He had an impression similar
to that of being at sea, for the wind, which he had scarcely
observed in the street, made melancholy noises in the new protective
wire-netting that stretched over his head. This bomb-catching
contrivance, fastened on thick iron stanchions, formed a sort of
second roof, and was a very solid and elaborate affair which must
have cost much money. The upstreaming light from the ladder-shaft was
suddenly extinguished. He could see nobody, and the loneliness was
uncomfortable.

Somehow, when Robin had announced that the ladies were on the roof he
had imagined the roof as a large, flat expanse. It was nothing of the
kind. So far as he could distinguish in the deep gloom it had leaden
pathways, but on either hand it sloped sharply up or sharply down. He
might have fallen sheer into a chasm, or stumbled against the leaden
side of a slant. He descried a lofty construction of carved masonry
with an iron ladder clamped into it, far transcending the net. Not
immediately did he comprehend that it was merely one of the famous
Lechford chimney-stacks looming gigantic in the night. He walked
cautiously onward and came to a precipice and drew back, startled, and
took another pathway at right angles to the first one. Presently
the protective netting stopped, and he was exposed to heaven; he had
reached the roof of the servants' quarters towards the back of the
house.

He stood still and gazed, accustoming himself to the night. The moon
was concealed, but there were