d not care to shake hands.

Turning round he walked out of the room, and she heard the front door
bang after him, as also, after a moment or two, the outside door set in
the garden wall.

Enid Crofton got up. Though she was shaking--shaking all over--she walked
swiftly across her little hall into the dining-room. There she sat down
at the writing-table, and took up the telephone receiver. "9846 Regent."

It was the number of Harold Tremaine's club. She thought he would almost
certainly be there just now.

She then hung up the receiver again, and, going to the door which
led into the kitchen, she opened it: "Don't bring in my supper yet.
I'll ring, when I'm ready for it." She then went back to the little
writing-table and waited impatiently.

At last the bell rang.

"I want to speak to Captain Tremaine. Is he in the Club? Can you find
him?"

She felt an intense thrill of almost superstitious relief when the answer
came: "Yes, ma'am. He's in the Club. I'll go and fetch him."

She remembered with relief that Tremaine had told her that no one could
overhear, at any rate at his end, what was being said or answered through
the telephone--but she also remembered that it was not the same here, in
The Trellis House.

Judging others by herself, as most of us do in this strange world, she
felt sure that her two young servants were listening behind the door.
Still, in a sense there was nothing Enid Crofton liked better than
pitting her wits against other wits. So when she heard the question,
"Who is it?" she simply answered, "Darling! Can't you guess?"

In answer to his rapturous assent, she said quietly, "I've made up my
mind to do what you wish."

And then she drank in with intense delight the flood of eager, exultant
words, uttered with such a rush of joy, and in so triumphant a tone, that
for a moment she thought that they must be heard, if not here, then
there, if not there, then here. But, after all, what did it matter? She
would have left this hateful place for ever to-morrow!

And then came a rather difficult moment. She did not wish to tell her
servants to-night that she was leaving The Trellis House to-morrow, and
yet somehow she must convey that fact to Tremaine.

As if he could see into her mind, there came the eager question, "Can you
come up to-morrow, darling? The sooner, the better, you know--"

She answered, "I will if you like--at the usual time."

He said eagerly, "You mean that train arriving a