oom itself
overhung the garden as a ship's deck overhangs the sea. Leather books
and long red curtains were the note of it. She and Harry had often been
here together before. Harry had made love to her here, and she had found
it pleasurable enough. But the fact that she could recall it now with
distaste made this familiar surrounding seem strange, and they
themselves strangest of all.

He hadn't got his breath. He had hardly shut the door on them before she
began. "Well, something has happened." She had his attention. His other
purpose was arrested. "Oh, something extraordinary. I would have told
you on the spot, only I thought you would rather Clara didn't know it."

"I?" That left him staring. "What have I to do with it?"

At this she gave him a long look. "It was through you he ever had the
chance of seeing me. I mean the blue-eyed Chinaman. He has followed me
all the evening. He followed me here to the very door." Flora's array of
facts fell so fast, so hard, so pointed, that for a moment they held him
speechless in the middle of the room.

Any fleeting suspicion she might have had of his complicity in the
Chinaman's pursuit vanished. He showed plain bewilderment. For a moment
he was more at sea than herself. The next she saw the shadow of a
thought so disturbing that it sharpened his ruddy face to harshness. He
stepped toward her. "What did he say to you?" He loomed directly above
her, threatening.

"Nothing. He didn't say anything. But I know he followed me quite to
the house, for I saw his shadow all the way down the hill."

Harry still breathed quickly. "Where--how did he come across you?"

She'd been prepared for that question.

"I was driving down Sutter Street and he saw me at the carriage window."

Harry stood tense, poised, catching everything as she tossed it off;
then as if all at once he felt the full weight of the burden, "Lord!" he
said, and let himself down heavily into a chair. It was plain in his
helpless stare that he knew exactly what it all meant. Laying her hands
on the high chair-arms, leaning down so that she could look into his
face, Flora made her thrust.

"What do you think he wants?" she gently asked. It was as if she would
coax it out of him. His answer was correspondingly low and soft.

"It's that damned ring."

She heard her secret fear spoken aloud with such assurance that she
waited, certain at the next moment Harry's voice would people the
silence with all the facts tha