have felt more constrained in her society.

"Will you oblige me," he said, with kindness, "by never speaking of
this again?"

"If you will first grant me one test of my opinion. Will you meet
Northway in some public place where Mr. Glazzard can be easily seen,
and ask the man to point out his informant--Mr. Marks?"

After much debate, and with great reluctance, he consented. From his
conversation of an hour ago he knew that Glazzard would be at the
Academy on the morrow. He had expressed a hope for a meeting there. At
the Academy, accordingly, the test should be applied. It was all a
fabrication; Northway, laying some new plot, might already know
Glazzard by sight. But the latter should be put on his guard, and Mrs.
Wade should then be taught that henceforth she was forbidden to concern
herself with his--Quarrier's--affairs.

He went home and passed a cheerless time until the next morning.
Suspicion, in spite of himself, crept into his thoughts. He was sick at
heart under the necessity, perhaps life-long, of protecting Lilian's
name against a danger which in itself was a sort of pollution. His
sanguine energy enabled him to lose the thought, at ordinary times, of
the risks to which he himself was exposed; but occasionally he
reflected that public life might even yet be made impossible for him,
and then he cursed the moral stupidity of people in general.

At eleven o'clock next morning he entered Burlington House. In the
vestibule at the head of the stairs stood Mrs. Wade, and Northway,
indistinguishable from ordinary frequenters of the exhibition, was not
far off. This gentleman had a reason for what he was doing; he wished
to discover who Mr. Marks really was, and what (since the political
plea could no longer be credited) had been his interest in Lilian.

"He is here already," said Mrs. Wade, as she joined Denzil. "Among the
sculpture--the inner room."

"Then I shall follow you at a distance. Challenge that fellow to go up
to Glazzard and address him as Mr. Marks."

The widow led in the direction she had indicated, through the central
hall, then to the right, Northway following close. Denzil had, of
course, to take it for granted that Mrs. Wade was acting honourably; he
did not doubt her good faith. If it came to a mere conflict of
assertions between his friend and Northway, he knew which of them to
believe. But he was much perturbed, and moved forward with a choking in
his throat.

Arrived at the threshol