nd again the colour deepened in
her cheeks.

"You sent for me, dear?"

"Because I need you. I want your advice, perhaps your help. He--he came
back again."

"When?"

"Last Saturday."

"And I left here Thursday," he smiled. "Joan, you have a spy in your
house who reports my movements and yours to Slotman. No sooner was I
gone from here than he was advised, and so he came. Now do you
understand why I am here. I knew that man would come. He needs money,
there is the magnet of your gold. He will never leave you in peace while
he thinks you alone and unprotected, but while I was here you were safe,
for he is a very coward."

"And that was why you came, knowing that he--"

She paused. "And I--I cut you in the street, Hugh."

"And hurt yourself by doing it," he said softly.

"Yes." She bowed her head, and then suddenly she thrust the softness and
the tenderness from her, for they must be dangerous things when she
loved this man as she did, and was promised to another.

"I must not forget that--I am--" She paused.

"Promised to another man? But you will never carry out that promise,
Joan--you cannot, my dear! You cannot, because you belong to me. But it
was not of that that you came to speak. Only remember what I have said.
It is true."

"It cannot be true. I never break a promise! What am I to do? Tell me
and advise me. You know--what he--he says--what he thinks or--or
pretends to think." Again the burning flush was in her cheeks.

"I know!"

"And even though it is all a vile and cruel lie, yet I could not bear--"

"You shall not suffer!"

"Don't--don't you understand that if people should think--think of such
a thing and me--that they should speak of it and utter my name--Lies or
truth, it would be almost the same; the shame of it would be
horrible--horrible!" She was trembling.

"Tell me, have you seen this man?"

"Yes, last Saturday. He wrote ordering me to meet him. In every line of
the letter I read threats. I--I had to go; it was money, of course, five
thousand pounds."

"And you didn't promise?" His voice was harsh and sharp, and looking at
him she saw a man changed, a man whose face was hard and stern, and
whose mouth had grown bitter. And, knowing it was for her, she knew that
she had never admired him before as she did now.

"I promised nothing. I am to meet him again to-morrow night and--and
tell him what I have decided. It is not the money, but--but to pay would
seem as if I--I were afra