I think fit. In
return, if it's needful, I'll see you through on reasonable terms until
you marry Miss Crestwick or somebody else with money."

On the whole, Gladwyne was conscious of relief. He had been badly
frightened for a moment or two. If Batley, who had good reasons for
distrusting him, had accepted his account of his cousin's death, it was
most unlikely that it had excited suspicion in the mind of anybody else.
Crestwick, however, must be left to his fate. It was, though he failed to
recognize this, an eventful decision that Gladwyne made.

"As you will," he answered, rising. "It's late; I'm going for my candle."

He strode out of the room, and Batley smiled as he followed him.

A day or two later Lisle stood on Gladwyne's lawn. Gladwyne entertained
freely, and though his neighbors did not approve of all of his friends,
the man had the gift of pleasing, and his mother unconsciously exerted a
charm on every one. She rarely said anything witty, but she never said
anything unkind and she would listen with a ready sympathy that sometimes
concealed a lack of comprehension.

Lisle had a strong respect for the calm, gracious lady, though she had
won it by no more than a smile or two and a few pleasant words, and he
went over to call upon her every now and then. He was interested in the
company he met at her house; it struck him as worth studying; and he had
a curious feeling that he was looking on at the preliminary stages of a
drama in which he might presently be called upon to play a leading part.
Besides, he had reasons for watching Gladwyne.

The stage was an attractive one to a man who had spent much of his time
in the wilderness--a wide sweep of sunlit sward with the tennis nets
stretched across part of it; on one side a dark fir wood; and for a
background a stretch of brown moor receding into the distance, dimmed by
an ethereal haze. A group of young men and women, picturesquely clad,
were busy about the nets; others in flannels and light draperies strolled
here and there across the grass, and a few more had gathered about the
tea-table under a spreading cedar, where Mrs. Gladwyne sat in a low
wicker-chair. Over all there throbbed the low, persistent murmur of a
stream.

Lisle was talking to Millicent near the table. He looked up as a burst of
laughter rose from beside the nets and saw Bella Crestwick walk away from
them. One or two of the others stood looking after her, and Mrs. Gladwyne
glanced from he