message for him."

Lady Carey yawned.

"A remarkably foolish thing to do," she said. "That may cause you
trouble later on. Great heavens, what is this?"

She held the evening paper open in her hand. Lucille leaned over with
blanched face.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me, can't you!"

"Reginald Brott has been shot in Piccadilly," Lady Carey said.

"Is he hurt?" Lucille asked.

"He is dead!"

They read the brief announcement together. The deed had been committed
by a man whose reputation for sanity had long been questioned, one of
Brott's own constituents. He was in custody, and freely admitted his
guilt. The two women looked at one another in horror. Even Lady Carey
was affected.

"What a hateful thing," she said. "I am glad that we had no hand in it."

"Are you so sure that we hadn't?" Lucille asked bitterly. "You see what
it says. The man killed him because of his political apostasy. We had
something to do with that at least."

Lady Carey was recovering her sang froid.

"Oh, well," she said, "indirect influences scarcely count, or one might
trace the causes of everything which happens back to an absurd extent.
If this man was mad he might just as well have shot Brott for anything."

Lucille made no answer. She leaned back and closed her eyes. She did not
speak again till they reached Dover.

They embarked in the drizzling rain. Lady Carey drew a little breath of
relief as they reached their cabin, and felt the boat move beneath them.

"Thank goodness that we are really off. I have been horribly nervous all
the time. If they let you leave England they can have no suspicion as
yet."

Lucille was putting on an ulster and cap to go out on deck.

"I am not at all sure," she said, "that I shall not return to England.
At any rate, if Victor does not come to me in Paris I shall go to him."

"What beautiful trust!" Lady Carey answered. "My dear Lucille, you are
more like a school-girl than a woman of the world."

A steward entered with a telegram for Lucille. It was banded in at the
Haymarket, an hour before their departure. Lucille read it, and her face
blanched. "I thank you for your invitation, but I fear that it would not
be good for my health.--S."

Lady Carey looked over her shoulder. She laughed hardly.

"How brutal!" she murmured. "But, then, Victor can be brutal sometimes,
can't he?"

Lucille tore it into small pieces without a word. Lady Carey waited for
a remark from her in vai