"Banks fatten on such
foolishness. Look at Hague. Ain't _he_ fat?"

Though it must have been imperceptible to another, Zoe detected, in her
father's manner, a suppressed excitement; and augured from it a belief
that the capture of Severac Bablon was imminent.

However, when Mary was gone, Mr. Oppner said nothing of the matter
which, doubtless, occupied his mind, and Zoe felt too guilty to broach
the subject. They retired at last, without having mentioned the name of
Severac Bablon.

Zoe found sleep to be impossible, and lay reading until long past one
o'clock. But when the book dropped from her hands, she slept soundly and
dreamlessly.

In the morning she scanned her mail anxiously. But there was nothing to
show that her warning had been received. Could it be that Severac Bablon
had suddenly deserted the cottage for some reason, and that he would
to-night walk, blindly, into the trap prepared for him?

She was anxious to see her father. And his manner, at breakfast, but
dimly veiled an evident exultation. He ate very little, leaving her at
the table, with one of his dry though not unkindly apologies, to go off
with the stoical Mr. Alden.

If only she had a friend in whom she might confide, whose advice she
might seek. Zoe laughed a little to think how excited she was on behalf
of Severac Bablon and how placidly she surveyed the possibility of her
father's being relieved of a huge sum of money.

"That's the worst of knowing Pa's so rich!" she mused philosophically.

The morning dragged wearily on. Noon came. Nothing and nobody interested
Zoe. She went to be measured for a gown and could not support the tedium
of the operation.

"Send someone to the Astoria to-morrow," she said. "I just can't stand
here any longer."

In the afternoon she called upon Sheila Vignoles, but everyone, from
Lord Vignoles to the butler, irritated her. She came away with a
headache. With the falling of dusk, her condition grew all but
insupportable. Her father had been absent all day. She had met no one
who would be likely to know anything about the night's expedition.

She sat looking out from her window at the Embankment, where lights were
now glowing, point after point, through the deepening gloom.

It was as she stood there, vainly wondering what was going forward, that
her father, his spare figure enveloped in a big motor coat, his cap
pulled down upon his brow, walked along Richmond High Street beside Mr.
Alden.

"By the t