The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

THE

SHADOW OF TYBURN TREE

by

DENNIS WHEATLEY

HUTCHINSON & CO.

CHAPTER I

THE BEST OF FRIENDS

GEORGINA ETHEREDGE'S limpid black eyes looked even larger than usual as, distended in a semi-hypnotic trance, they gazed unwinkingly into a crystal goblet full of water. It stood in the centre of a small buhl table, at the far side of which sat Roger Brook. His firm, well-shaped hands were thrust out from elegant lace ruffles to clasp her beringed fingers on either side of the goblet while, in a low, rich voice, she foretold something of what the future held in store.

She was twenty-one and of a ripe, luscious beauty. Her hair was black, and the dark ringlets that fell in casual artistry about the strong column of her throat shimmered with those warm lights that testify to abounding health; her skin was flawless, her full cheeks were tinted with a naturally high colour; her brow was broad and her chin deter­mined. She was wearing a dress of dark red velvet, the wide sleeves and hem of which were trimmed with bands of sable, and although it was not yet midday the jewels she was wearing would have been counted by most other women sufficient for a presentation at Court.

He was some fifteen months younger, but fully grown and just over six feet tall. His white silk stockings set off well-modelled calves; his hips were narrow, his shoulders broad and his back muscular. There was nothing effeminate about his good looks except the eyes, which were a deep, vivid blue with dark, curling lashes, and they had been the envy of many a woman. His brown hair was brushed in a high roll back from his forehead and tied with a cherry-coloured ribbon at the nape of his neck. His coat, too, was cherry-coloured, with a high double collar edged with gold galloon, and open at the neck displaying the filmy lace of his cravat. His teeth were good; his expression frank and friendly.

They were in Georgina's boudoir at her country home; and, having breakfasted together at eleven o'clock, were passing away the time until the arrival of the guests that she was expecting for the week-end.

So far, the things she had seen in the water-filled goblet had been a little vague and far from satisfactory. For him a heavy loss at cards; concerning her a letter by a foreign hand in which she suspected treachery; for both of them journeys across water, but in two different ships that passed one another in the night..

For a moment she was silent, then she said, "Why, Roger, I see a wedding ring. How prodigious strange. 'Tis the last thing I would have expected. Alack, alack! It fades before I can tell for which of us 'tis intended. But wait; another picture forms. Mayhap we'll learn.... Nay; this has no connection with the last. 'Tis a court of justice. I see a judge upon a bench. He wears a red robe trimmed with ermine and a great, full-bottomed wig. Tis a serious matter that he tries. We are both there in the court and we are both afraid—afraid for one another. But which of us is on trial I cannot tell. The court is fading—fading. Now something else is. forming, where before was the stern face of the judge. It begins to solidify. It—it. .. ."

Suddenly Roger felt her fingers stiffen. Next second she had torn them from his grasp and her terrified cry rang through the richly-furnished room.

"No, no! Oh, God; it can't be true! I'll not believe it!"

With a violent gesture she swept the goblet from the table; the water fountained across the flowered Aubusson carpet and the crystal goblet shattered against the leg of a lacquer cabinet. Her eyes staring, her full red lips drawn back displaying her strong white teeth in a Medusa-like grimace, Georgina gave a moan, lurched forward, and buried her face in her hands.

' Roger had started to his feet at her first cry. Swiftly he slipped round the table and placed his hands firmly on her bowed shoulders.

"Georgina! Darling!" he cried anxiously. "What ails thee? In Heaven's name, what dids't thou see?"

As she made no reply he shook her gently; then, parting her dark ringlets he kissed her on the nape of the neck, and murmured, "Come, my precious. Tell me, I beg! What devil's vision was it that has upset thee so?"

" 'Twas—'twas a gallows, Roger; a gallows-tree," she stammered, bursting into a flood of tears.

Roger's firm mouth tightened and his blue eyes narrowed in swift resistance to so. terrible an omen; but his face paled slightly. Georgina had inherited the gift of second-sight from her Gipsy mother, and he had known too many of her prophecies come true to take her sooth­saying lightly. Yet he managed to keep his voice steady as he said, "Oh come, m'dear. On this occasion your imagination has played you a scurvy trick. You've told me many times that you often see things but for an instant. Like as not it was a signpost that you glimpsed, yet not clearly enough to read the lettering on it."

"Nay!" she exclaimed, choking back her sobs. " 'Twas a gibbet, I tell thee! I saw it so plainly that I could draw the very graining of the wood; and—and from it there dangled a noose of rope all ready for a hanging."

A fresh outburst of weeping seized her, so Roger slipped one arm under her knees and the other round her waist, then picked her up from her chair. She was a little above medium height and possessed the bounteous curves considered the high-spot of beauty in the female figure of the eighteenth century, so she was no light weight. But his muscles were hardened with riding and fencing. Without apparent effort he carried her to the leopard-headed, gilt day-bed in the centre of the room, and laid her gently upon its button-spotted yellow satin cushioning.

It was here, in her exotic boudoir reclining gracefully on her day-bed, a vision of warm, self-possessed loveliness, that the rjph and fashionable Lady Etheredge was wont to receive her most favoured visitors and enchant them with her daring wit. But now, she was neither self-possessed nor in a state to bandy trivialities with anyone. Having implicit belief in her uncanny gift, she was still suffering from severe shock, and had become again a very frightened little girl.

Roger fetched her the smelling-salts that she affected, but rarely used in earnest, from a nearby table; then ran into her big bedroom next door, soused his handkerchief from a cut-glass decanter of Eau de Cologne and, running back, spread it as a bandage over her fore­head. For a few moments he patted her hands and murmured endear­ments; then, realising that he could bring her no further comfort till the storm was over, he left her to dab at those heart-wrecking eyes that always seemed to have a faint blue smudge under them, with a wisp of cambric, and walked over to one of the tall windows.

It was a Saturday, and the last day of March in the year 1788., George III, now in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, was King of England, and the younger Pitt, now twenty-eight years of age, had already been his Prime Minister for four and a quarter years. The Opposition, representing the vested interests of the powerful Whig nobles, and led by Charles James Fox, was still formidable; but the formerly almost autocratic King and the brilliant, idealistic, yet hard-headed son of the Great Commoner, with a little give and take on both sides, between them now controlled the destinies of Britain.

The American colonies had been lost to the Mother country just before the younger Pitt came to power. Between the years '78 and '83 Britain had stood alone against a hostile world; striving to retain her fairest possessions in the distant Americas while menaced at home, locked in bitter conflict upon every sea with the united power of France, Spain and the Dutch, and further hampered by the armed neutrality of Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden and Austria also arrayed against her.

From this desperate struggle Britain had emerged still proud and defiant, having given her continental enemies harder knocks than she sustained; but so exhausted by the effort that the great majoity of her people believed that she was ruined for good and, still isolated as she was, must now sink to the station of a second-class power.

Yet, in four short years the colossal industry and ability of young Billy Pitt, both in the sphere of commerce and foreign relations, had lifted his country once again to first place among the nations. His financial genius had restored her prosperity and his broad vision had gained her friends. In '86 he had struck at the roots of England's most cancerous, wasting sore—her centuries-old feud with the French— by a commercial treaty which was now rapidly bringing about a better understanding between the two countries. And in recent months he had successfully negotiated defensive treaties with both the Dutch and the King of Prussia; thus forming the Triple Alliance as an insur­ance against future aggression. Since the Peace of Versailles in '83 his wise policies had done more than those of any other statesman to stabilise a shaken world, and it seemed that Europe might now look forward to a long period of tranquillity.

Roger Brook was justly proud that, young as he was, he had, in some small measure, secretly contributed to the new Alliance*; and, during the past five months, he had put all thought of work from him, to enjoy to the full the almost forgotten feeling of well-being and secur­ity that Mr. Pitt had re-won for the people of England.

*The Launching of Roger Brook (His story in the years 1783-87).

Several of these care-free weeks Roger had spent with his parents, Rear-Admiral and Lady Marie Brook, at his home on the outskirts of Lymington, in Hampshire; others he had passed in London; fre­quently going to the gallery of the House to hear the learned, well-reasoned but tedious orations of Edmund Burke, the melodious, force­ful eloquence of Fox, and the swift, incisive logic of the young Prime Minister; but he had devoted the greater part of his time to the tomboy companion of his early adolescence, who had since become the beautiful Lady Etheredge.

Meeting again after a separation of four years they had seen one another with new eyes. During most of November they had danced, laughed and supped together in the first throes of a hectic love affair; and since then he had been a frequent guest here at "Stillwaters," the magnificent setting she had secured for her flamboyant personality down in the heart of the Surrey woods, near Ripley.

The stately mansion had been designed by William Kent, some half a century earlier, and was a perfect specimen of Palladian archi­tecture. Forty-foot columns supported its domed, semi-circular, central portico; from each side of which broad flights of stone steps curved down to a quarter-mile-long balustraded terrace with pairs of ornamental vases set along it at intervals and between these, other nights of steps gave onto a wide lawn, sloping gently to the natural lake from which the house took its name. Kent, the father of English gardens, had also laid out the flower-borders and shady walks at each end of the terrace; and nature's setting had been worthy of his genius, since the house and lake lay in the bottom of a shallow valley; a secret, sylvan paradise enclosed on every side by woods of pine and silver birch.

Now that spring had come blue and yellow crocus gaily starred the grass beneath the ornamental trees, and the daffodils were beginning to blossom on the fringe of the woods, which feathered away above them in a sea of delicate emerald green. The scene was utterly still, and not even marred by the presence of a gardener; for it was her Lady­ship's standing order that none of the thirty men employed to keep the grounds should ever be visible from her windows after she rose at ten o'clock.

Indeed, the prospect on which Roger looked down was one of such peace, dignity and beauty as only England has to show; but there was no peace in his heart. He loved Georgina dearly. They were both only children, and his fondness for her was even deeper from having filled to her the role of brother, than that of a lover. But she had been aggravatingly temperamental of late, and now this dread foreboding, that one or both of them would fall under the shadow of the gallows, had shaken him much more than he cared to admit.

After some moments he turned and, seeing that her weeping had ceased, went over and kissed her on her still damp cheek; then he said with as much conviction as he could muster:

"My love, I beg you to use your utmost endeavours to put this horrid vision from your mind. You know as well as I that all such glimpses of the unknown are only possibilities—not certainties. They are but random scenes from several paths which circumstances make it possible that one may tread; yet, having free-will, we are not bound to any, and may, by a brave decision taken opportunely, evade such evil pitfalls as fate seems to have strewn in our way. You have oft predicted things that have come true for both of us, but there are times when you have been at fault; and others when you have seen the ill but not its context, so that in the event it proved harmless after all, or a blessing in disguise. With God's Mercy, this will prove such a case."

Georgina was far too strong a personality to give way to panic for long, and having by an effort regained her composure, she replied firmly, "Thou art right in that, dear heart, and we must take such comfort from it as we may. Yet, I confess, the vision scared me mightily; for I once before saw a gibbet in the glass when telling poor Captain Coignham's fortune, and he was swinging from one on Setley Heath within the year."

"Egad!" exclaimed Roger, with a look of shocked surprise. "Coignham was the highwayman you once told me of. The same that held you up in the New Forest when you were scarce seventeen, and robbed you of your virginity as ransom for your rings. Dost mean to tell me that you took to meeting the rogue afterwards? Damme, you must have! No occasion could have arisen for you to tell his fortune otherwise."

She smiled. "I'll not deny it. Dick Coignham was near as handsome as you are, Roger darling; and 'twould be more fair to say that he persuaded me to give, rather than robbed me, of what he took. It never cost me a moment's regret, and 'twas a fine, romantic way to lose one's maidenhead."

"That I'll allow, as an unpremeditated act committed in hot blood —but to deliberately enter on an affair with a notorious felon. How could you bring yourself to that?"

"And why not, Sir?" she countered, with a swift lift of her eye­brows. "You may recall that 'twas soon after my first meeting with him that I went to Court for my presentation, and during that season I threw my slippers over the moon with the handsomest buck of the day. On my return to Highcliffe there came yourself; but only that once, then you went to France. You'll not have forgotten how Papa's having taken a Gipsy for his wife had estranged him from the county, and the almost solitary existence that I led down there in consequence. After a little, with not even a local beau to buy me a ribbon, I became prodigious bored. So when out riding one day I encountered Dick Coignham again, what could be more natural than that I should be­come his secret moll. More than once I slipped out at night to watch him waylay a coach in the moonlight, and afterwards we made love with the stolen guineas clinking in his pockets. He was a bold, merry fellow, and I vow there were times when he caused me to near die of excitement."

"Georgina, you are incorrigible!" murmured Roger, with a sad shake of his head.

She gave a low, rich laugh. "And you, m'dear, are the veriest snob. Why should you be so shocked to learn that I took a tobyman for my lover? Since that day long ago, when I turned you from a schoolboy into a man, I've made no secret of the fact that I was born a wanton and will always take my pleasure where I list. 'Tis naught to me how a man gets his living, provided he be clean, gay and good to look upon. Think you poor Dick was more to blame because he paid for the gold lace upon his coats by robbing travellers of their trinkets, than all the fine gentlemen at Westminster who take the King's bribes to vote against their consciences?"

"Nay, I'd not say that. I meant only that there are times when I fear your reckless disregard for all convention may one day bring you into grievous trouble."

"Should that occur I'll count it a great injustice. Men are allowed to pleasure themselves where they will, so why not a woman? When you were in France. . .."

With a smile, he held up his hand to check her. " 'Tis true enough. I tumbled quite a few pretty darlings whose lineage did not entitle them to make their curtsy at Versailles, and I know, of old, your contention that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose in such matters. But the world does not view things that way. And—well, should aught occur to part us I do beg you, my pet, to harness your future impulses with some degree of caution."

One of those swift changes of mood to which she was frequently subject caused her tapering eyebrows to draw together in a sudden frown. "You were thinking of the horrid thing that I saw but now in the glass?"

"Nay," he protested quickly, cursing himself for having brought her thoughts back to it.

"Indeed you were, Roger. To me your mind is an open book. But have no fears on that score. 'Tis all Lombard Street to a China Orange against my ever again becoming a cut-purse's doxey, and getting a hanging from being involved in his crimes. Dick Coignham was an exception to the breed, and I was a young, romantic thing, in those days. For the most part they are a race of scurvy, unlettered, stinking knaves, that no female so fastidious as myself would lay a finger on. 'Tis you who must now take caution as your watchword. Tis far more likely that, as a man, your temper may lead you into some unpremeditated killing than that I, as a woman, should shed human blood."

"I'll have a care," he agreed. "But from what you said it did appear that should rashness or stupidity bring us to this evil pass we'll both be concerned in it."

"Dear Roger," she laid a hand on his. "How could it be otherwise when our destinies are so entwined? Would not either of us hasten from the ends of the earth to aid the other in such an hour of trial? Physical passion between all lovers must always wax and wane, and in that we can be no exception. Yet, in our case, passion is but a small part of the link that binds us, and we shall love one another till we die."

He raised her hand to his lips. "Thou art right in that; and neither temporary disagreements nor long separations will ever sever this sweet bond, that I value more than life itself. But tell me. When you saw the wedding ring, had you no inkling at all for which of us it was intended?"

"None. And that, m'dear, comes from thy foolishness in proposing that I should seek to tell the future for us both at the same time. 'Tis a thing that I have never before attempted and it created a sad con­fusion in my telling. Seeing that I am married already, though, the odds are clearly against it being for me."

"Not necessarily. Humphrey may break his neck any day in the hunting-field, or die any night from an apoplexy brought on by his excessive punishing of the port."

She sighed. "I wish him no harm; but each time I've seen him of late he's been more plaguey difficult. We liked one another well enough to begin with, but now we have not even friendship left, or mutual respect."

Roger made a comic little grimace. "Your main reason for choosing him rather than one of your many other suitors was because you had set your heart on Stillwaters. You have it; and he leaves you free to lead the life you choose, so it does not seem to me that you have much cause to complain."

"After the first year we agreed to go our separate ways, and until last autumn he gave me very little trouble. But since then he has developed sporadic fits of prying into my affairs, and 'tis a thing that I resent intensely."

"You've never told me of this."

"There was no point in doing so. 'Tis not normal jealousy that causes him to make me these scenes when we meet. 'Tis resentment that I should continue to enjoy life to the full while he is no longer capable of deriving pleasure from aught but horseflesh and the bottle; and, some­thing quite new in him, a morbid fear that he may become a laughing­stock should my infidelities to him be noised abroad. I've a notion that the liquor is beginning to effect his brain. Should I be right in that a time may come when he will have to be put under restraint; and if that occurs he may live to be a hundred. So you see all the chances are that you will marry long before there is any prospect of my being led to the altar as a widow."

"I've no mind to marry," Roger declared. "I would hate to be shackled for life to any woman; that is, unless I could marry you. But perhaps the ring was an omen of the future meant for both of us. Would you marry me, Georgina, if in a few years time you became free?"

"Lud no!" she exclaimed with a sudden widening of her eyes. "I thank thee mightily for the compliment, but 'twould be the height of folly. Marriage is the one and only thing which might sap away the true love which otherwise will last us a life-time. Once we were tied I vow we'd be hating one another within a year."

"Nay. I'll not believe it. We have so many interests in common, and never know a single dull moment when in one another's company. Even when passion faded we'd have a wealth of joyous things to do together."

"Be truthful, Roger," she chided him gently. "Although I have been your mistress only for some five months you have already come to take me for granted, and there are now times when you are just a little bored with me."

"I deny it," he cried hotly.

" 'Tis so, m'dear. Why did you ask me to invite your friend Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel down this week-end, if not because I am no longer capable of retaining your whole attention, and you are beginning to feel the need for other interests?"

"Oh, cornel That is nonsense. Whenever you entertain you must, perforce, give much of your time to your other guests, and I have never taken the slightest umbrage over that. I simply wished Droopy Ned to see your lovely home; and to have someone to talk to, other than your father and the Duke, in order to lessen the chance of my being rude to Mr. Fox."

She laughed. "How you dislike poor Charles, don't you? Yet he is the kindest and most genial of men."

"He is amusing enough and generous to a fault. 'Tis not his company I hate, but his politics. Not a bill goes before the House but he uses his brilliant gifts and mastery of intrigue to get it thrown out—entirely regardless as to the degree of good its passage might do the country."

"That is but natural in a leader of the Opposition."

"There are times when the Government has the right to expect the co-operation of the Opposition for the well-being of the State," Roger replied warmly. "But Fox would not restrain his venomous animosity to the Ministers of the Crown even if the Cinque Ports were in jeopardy. He is the bond-slave of an ungovernable ambition and would stick at nothing to obtain office. His unholy pact with my Lord North in '83 was proof enough of that. 'Twas the most despic­able manoeuvre that has ever disgraced British politics, and why you should elect to make a friend of such a man passes my comprehension."

Georgina shrugged her ample shoulders. "I have three perfectly good reasons. Firstly, I like Charles for himself. Secondly, your idol Mr. Pitt is a boorish, uncouth recluse, who despises society; and since I cannot have the Prime Minister at my table, the next best thing is the leader of the Opposition. Thirdly, Mr. Pitt's reign cannot last in­definitely, and when he falls Charles will become the occupant of Number Ten. Then, Roger, my love, I'll be able to make you Paymaster of the Forces—as I promised I would when you were fifteen."

"You are wrong about Mr. Pitt," Roger smiled, his good humour restored. "He is very shy, but neither boorish nor uncouth; and while your Mr. Fox is making pretty speeches to the ladies at Carlton House, or gambling thousands a night away at Brook's, Mr. Pitt is at his desk, working into the small hours for the good of the nation. As for your offer of the most lucrative post in the Kingdom, I am mightily obliged; but rather than accept it from the hands of Charles James Fox I would prefer to starve in the gutter."

"Hoity-toity!" Georgina mocked him. "What high principles we have, to be sure. But as your patron, Mr. Pitt, has the King's purse to play with no doubt you can count on his keeping you from beggary."

Roger ignored the gibe, and asked, "Is Mr. Fox bringing Mrs. Armistead with him?"

"Yes. His 'dear Betty' has become an institution rather than a mistress these days. He rarely leaves London now without her, and makes her place at Chertsey his home whenever the House is not sitting. She has some education and is not a bad creature, even if she did graduate by somewhat dubious ways from being a serving wench."

"How will his Grace of Bridgewater and his sister take her presence here? If Lady Amelia Egerton is as straightlaced as her brother I foresee noses in the air."

"There will be no awkwardness," Georgina replied easily. "They are old friends and I know their tastes well. His Grace will be perfectly happy talking of canals and coalmines with Papa, and Lady Amelia, like many another old spinster, finds the breath of life in scandal. 'Tis for her that I asked that delightful old rake George Selwyn. He will keep her amused for hours."

Roger laughed. "I had temporarily forgotten your artistry in mixing the most diverse types successfully."

"I owe much of my success as a hostess to it; yet 'tis easy enough. One has only to give a little thought to seeing that each guest is paired by love or interest to another and, their own happiness being assured, none of them will give a fig who else is in the party."

"All the same thou art a witch, my pet, in more ways than looking bewitching. Few other women would dare to brew the politics of both parties, the demi-monde and the aristocracy, industry and vested interests, a puritan Duke and an ex-member of the Hell-Fire Club, all in one week-end cauldron, without fear of its boiling over."

"You may add diplomacy," Georgina told him with a smile. "Methinks I had forgot to tell you that Count Sergius Vorontzoff, the Russian Ambassador, is also coming."

"And where does he fit into your scheme of pairs?" Roger asked with the lift of an eyebrow.

Georgina's smile became seraphic. "Why, I have asked him to amuse myself, of course; while you are playing backgammon with your crony, Droopy Ned."

"Seeing that Droopy is not a woman that hardly seems a quid pro quo."

"Indeed it is. The conversation of your friend will entertain you admirably twixt now and Monday; whereas I have yet to meet the female who could engage my attention pleasurably for more than an hour or two at a stretch."

"What sort of a man is this Muscovite?"

"He comes of one of the great families of his country. His father was Grand Chancellor to the Empress Elizabeth. One of his sisters was the mistress of her nephew, the ill-fated Emperor Peter III; while another, the Princess Dashkoff, entered the other camp, and play­ed a leading part in the conspiracy by which the present Empress Catherine unseated her husband and usurped his throne."

"I had meant, what is he like personally?"

"He is a dark man, not yet past the prime of life, with a clever, forceful face; and, I should hazard, is quite unscrupulous by nature. Underneath his culture there is a touch of barbarism which must give him a strong appeal to women. I met him at the Duchess of Devon­shire's several times this winter, and on the very first occasion he showed the good taste to express the most ardent desire to become my lover."

Roger frowned. " 'Tis my belief that you have asked him down with the deliberate intent to make me jealous."

"Lud no, dear man!" she replied airily. "We are both, thank God, far too sophisticated to fall a prey to such a sordid emotion. Did we not agree when first we became lovers that if either of us should choose to be unfaithful to the other no word-of reproach should mar our friendship?"

"I know it!" Roger stood up and walked over to the window. The dark blue eyes that he had inherited from his Highland mother had become a shade darker, as he went on a little sullenly. "Yet I am not of the temperament to stand idly by and watch another man making a play for your favours."

Georgina stretched and yawned. "Then m'dear, you are about to become a plaguey bore, and will be going back upon our clear under­standing. We agreed that we would remain free to indulge in casual amours if we wished, and tell or not tell of them as we felt inclined; to ignore such frailties in one another or, if in the case of either such a matter developed into a grande affaire, to separate without ill-will. 'Tis the only condition upon which I have ever entered on a liaison, or ever will; and you entirely agreed with me that, only so could two people live together and be certain of escaping sordid, wearing scenes of futile recrimination."

Turning back from the window Roger said quietly, "That was our pact, and I will honour it. But tell me, frankly. Is it your intention to start an affair with the Russian this week-end?"

She shrugged. "You know better than anyone how varied are my moods, and how unpredictable. How can I tell in advance what my feelings may be towards him upon closer acquaintance."

He scowled at her for a moment, then said reproachfully. "I've felt for the past week or two that you were becoming restless, and that we were no longer in perfect accord; but I had not thought that our parting was to come so soon."

"Dear Roger," she murmured, with a sudden return to gentleness. "I confess that my heart no longer leaps at the sound of your footfall coming to my room. But you too have lost something of your first fine rapture in me; and if you are honest you will admit it. A time always comes when even the best of friends should part for a season; and wise lovers always do so while there is still an edge upon their passion, instead of waiting for it to become entirely blunted. Only by so doing can they preserve a hope of coming together again with renewed zest sometime in the future."

"So be it then; but at least let our relationship remain unchanged throughout the week-end. Then I will take my congéwith a good grace, and leave with your other guests on Monday."

She hesitated a second, then she said. "I am most loath to do any­thing which would give you pain. And think not, I beg, that I am wearied of you to a point where I would have you make so hurried a departure. Stillwaters is so lovely in the Spring, and there is no one with whom I would rather gather daffodils in the woods than your dear self. Stay on for a further week or two, and bear me company while you make your future plans. But for this evening and to-morrow I crave your indulgence to try my wiles on Sergius Vorontzoff."

Roger had too much pride to accept the proferred olive branch at the price. Instead, he snapped sarcastically. "From what you've already said 'twill need but little trying on your part to rouse the cave-man in this northern barbarian; and you must forgive me if I say that you seem in a positively indecent hurry to begin."

"Nay. 'Tis not that," she murmured, her tone still mild. "I'll admit the man intrigues me, but I would have been well content to wait until our affair was ended, had not circumstances forced my hand. The truth is Charles knows that the Russian has a fancy for me and wrote asking permission to bring him down. It seems that the Opposition are particularly anxious to gain his interest, and, naturally, if I decide to take him in hand I shall be in a position to exert a certain influence over him."

"May the devil take Charles Fox!" cried Roger angrily. "Damn him and his filthy political intrigues."

"Oh, be sensible, m'dear. 'Twill prove well worth my while to render him this service, should I find that my own inclinations coincide with his interests."

"Surely you would lose nothing by postponing the issue for a while?"

"There lies the rub. I fear one might lose everything. 'Tis said that these Russians are as proud as they are bold. After the avowals he has already made me he will come with high expectations. Should I not give him some encouragement he may think that I have deliberately made a fool of him, and the strength of his resentment might rob me of any future chance to develop his acquaintance."

Roger's face hardened. "You must have known he was coming days ago, yet you told me nothing of it. 'Tis clear that you were already considering him as a possible successor to myself yet lacked the frank­ness to tell me what was in your mind."

"I thought of doing so but refrained, from an instinct that you would take it ill and behave towards me like a jealous husband; and rightly, so it seems."

"On the contrary, Madam, I should have packed my bags and relieved you of my presence; as I would this very afternoon were it not that Droopy is coming here at my behest. Since that renders my immediate departure impossible I feel that I have the right to ask that, whatever assignations you may choose to make with Vorontzoff for the near future, you will spare me the humiliation of allowing him to make love to you till I have left your house."

Georgina sighed. "Roger you weary me a little. I have been entirely faithful to you for these past five months; but now I invoke our pact. Before Athenais de Rochambeau gave you her heart you already loved her desperately; yet, as you have told me, you did not scruple to take mistresses for your amusement. Why then should you cavil so now if I elect to give something of myself to another, which will not detract one iota from my deep, abiding love for you. Besides, .as I have already said, I may give the Russian no more than a few kisses."

"If you'll promise that I'll say no more."

Slowly Georgina stood up, shook out the folds of her voluminous red velvet gown and drew herself up to her full height. They faced one another only a yard apart; two splendid, strong-willed, passionate young people. Then she said firmly:

"I have already told you, Sir, all will depend upon how much or how little he attracts me on closer acquaintance. I refuse to be dictated to, and I will promise nothing."

At that moment a coach-horn sounded in the distance, and she added, "There! That will be some of my guests arriving. I must hurry down to join Papa for their reception."

As she was about to turn away he seized her by the arm, and cried furiously: "I'm damned if I'll let you tromper me under my very nose."

"About that we'll see!" she snapped back, her dark eyes blazing. "But please to understand that from this instant I forbid you the entrée to my private apartments; and that I'll do as I damn well please!"

Then, wrenching her arm from his grasp, she sailed regally from the room.

CHAPTER II

A LOSING BATTLE

As Georgina reached the top of the main staircase Roger caught her up. Below them her father, Colonel Thursby, who adored, spoilt and lived with her almost permanently, although he had two houses of his own, had just come out of one of the four splendid reception rooms that gave onto the spacious entrance hall of the mansion.

On catching sight of him Roger made Georgina a formal bow and offered her his arm. Laying her hand lightly on it she gathered up her billowing skirts with the other, and they walked down the broad, shallow stairs. By the time they reached the bottom not a trace of ill temper was to be seen on the face of either, although both their hearts were still beating with unnatural swiftness as a result of their quarrel.

The front door was already open and a squad of liveried footmen were relieving the first arrivals of their wraps. These proved to be Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel and Mr. Selwyn. Both were members of White's Club and it transpired that the former, learning that the latter was also going to Stillwaters for the week-end, had carried him from London in his curricle.

Roger's friend was some three years older than himself; an ex­tremely thin but rather tall young man with pale blue eyes and a beaky nose. He had derived his nickname of Droopy Ned from his chronic stoop, but he was a great dandy; and under his lazy manner he con­cealed a quick, well-balanced and unusually profound mind.

George Selwyn was nearly seventy, although he did not look it; and from his mild, benign face no one would ever have guessed that in his youth he had been one of the most notorious rakes in London. He possessed an enchanting wit, a most kindly disposition and friends without number, being equally popular with Queen Charlotte and Betty the flower woman of St. James's Street.

With the courtly manners of the day both the new arrivals made a gallant leg to Georgina, who curtseyed deeply in response; then, with hands on their hearts, they exchanged bows with Colonel Thursby and Roger, while the well-bred greetings echoed round the hall.

"Your ladyship's most humble."

"And yours, m'Lord."

"Your Servant, Sir."

"My duty, Sir, to you."

They were still uttering polite platitudes about the journey and the fortunate state of the weather when another coach-horn sounded, so they all remained in the hall until the next vehicle drew up.

It contained Mr. Fox and Mrs. Armistead, and close on their heels came the Russian Ambassador. He had taken breakfast with them

at her house, St. Anne's Hill, on Fox's suggestion that afterwards his coach could follow theirs and thus more easily find the way.

The famous leader of the Opposition was then in his fortieth year. His big frame was still vigorous, but his swarthy countenance showed the marks of the dissipation in which he had indulged ever since his cynical father had taken him from Eton to Paris, and encouraged him to indulge in vice at the age of fourteen. In his youth he had been a dandy and the leader of the young macaronis, who startled the town with their exaggerated toilettes; but now he had become slovenly in his dress. His black hair, streaked with grey, was ill-brushed, and he took no measures to restrain the great, ugly paunch that seemed every moment to threaten to burst his silk breeches.

Mrs. Armistead, a lady of uncertain age, still possessed a certain coarse beauty, but she showed an admirable restraint in both her dress and manners; evidently being well content to play the moon to her distinguished lover's sun.

Roger greeted them both with the utmost politeness, but he had no eyes for either. The second he had made his bows his gaze fastened on Count Vorontzoff, and he felt that Georgina had given him a very fair description of the Russian.

The Count, Roger judged, was not less than forty, but his face, figure and movements all bespoke a forceful, virile personality. He was of medium height, well-made and very dark. His rather flat face, high cheekbones and jet black eyes suggested Tartar blood, and the last had all the inscrutability of an Oriental's. His clothes were evidently London made, but his wig and the rich jewels he was wearing at his throat and on his hands added to the foreignness of his appearance.

He stood for a moment quietly smiling at Georgina before he bowed to her. The smile lit up his rather sombre features, giving them a strange attraction; but there was something more than greeting or frank admiration in his glance; something insolent, cocksure, possessive, that made Roger itch to slap his face.

When the Russian spoke it was in French, and with the greatest fluency. Two of his servitors, rough hairy men, had entered behind him carrying a small, leather, round-lidded trunk. Having reached out, taken both Georgina's hands with the greatest assurance, kissed them, and murmured some most lavish compliments, he went on to say that he begged to be permitted to offer her a trifling present— a bagatelle quite unworthy of her but in which she might care to dress up one of her servants for her amusement. Then he beckoned his men forward.

Roger, having spent four years in France, and speaking French like a native himself, had understood every word of this; so he was not surprised when the two moujiks went down on their knees before Georgina and, opening the trunk, took from it a costume. But he and everyone else present were filled with admiration at its richness.

It was the gala skirt and bodice of a Russian peasant girl, the rainbow-hued embroideries of which had been stitched with infinite care; and with it were the filmy white petticoats, a pair of soft, red leather boots and a splendid headdress tinkling with gold coins, to complete the costume.

As Georgina exclaimed with delight at this exciting gift Vorontzoff bowed again, and said in his slightly husky voice: "Should my Lady take a fancy to try on these poor rags before casting them to her maid, she will, I trust, find that they fit her exquisite figure perfectly."

"But Monsieur le Comte!How can you possibly be sure of that?" smiled Georgina, her eyes widening.

The Russian's strong white teeth gleamed for a second in a con­fident grin. "If they do not, my steward's back shall make acquaint­ance with the knout; since the rogue was given ample funds to secure the correct measurements from your dressmaker."

"Indeed, Sir; I am prodigious grateful to you for your forethought," Georgina replied a trifle breathlessly. Then, beckoning over one of her footmen she added, "Here, Thomas! Take these lovely things to Jenny. Tell her that I desire her to press them at once and place them in my wardrobe."

As the footman took the costume from the moujiksGeorgina placed her hand upon the Ambassador's arm and led him across the hall towards the drawing-room. The others followed, Droopy Ned and Roger bringing up the rear.

The latter, unheeding of his friend's casual chatter, was cursing the Russian beneath his breath. His sole source of income was the £300 a year which his father allowed him. Having no establishment of his own to keep up, that was normally ample for his needs; but his extravagant taste in clothes left him little over, and during the past few months he had strained his resources to buy Georgina presents. Yet, even so, to a wealthy woman of fashion, his gifts had been no more than knick-knacks; whereas this confounded foreigner could produce a present of greater value than them all, by a mere wave of his hand. Moreover, as Georgina loved dressing up, few gifts could have been better calculated to appeal to her.

After passing through a long suite of reception rooms the party arrived at the Orangery, in the south-western extremity of the house. It was something more than a conservatory for. the cultivation of semi-tropical plants such as citrus fruits, banana-palms, mimosas and camellias; since Georgina spent much of her time there, and had had sofas, chairs and tables set in alcoves formed by pyramidal arrange­ments of exotic greenery.

The tables now carried an assortment of wines and spirits for the refreshment of the male travellers, and hot chocolate for the ladies. It was as yet only a little past mid-day, but the custom of the times was to breakfast late, making it a full dress meal, and to dine at four o'clock, or shortly after.

As Colonel Thursby poured Selwyn a glass of Madeira he inquired: "Have you been to any executions lately, George?"

The question was a perfectly natural one; as, although there was nothing the least ghoulish in Selwyn's appearance or morbid in his manner, he was well known to have an insatiable interest in hang­ings, exhumations and everything connected with death. It was even said that when the body of Martha Ray; Lord Sandwich's mistress, had been exhibited after her murder by an unsuccessful suitor, he had bribed the undertaker to be allowed to sit at the head of the corpse dressed in the flowing weeds of a professional mourner.

"Nay, Newgate has been plaguey unproductive of recent months," Selwyn replied; then added with a smiling glance at Fox: " 'Tis my belief that all our most desperate criminals must have taken refuge in the House."

"Oh, come, George!" Fox exclaimed with his ready laugh. "How can you pass so harsh a judgment on those amongst whom you sat for twenty-six years as Member for Ludgershall?"

"In my day they were of a different metal, Charles. My Lord Chatham would never have allowed the impeachment of so great a servant of the Crown as Mr. Warren Hastings; or this miserable trial which still agitates the nation and threatens to drag on interminably."

" 'Twas the only way to bring the natives of India some measure of protection from the rapine of the Company's servants. Pitt, himself, admitted that, when condemning Hastings' action in mulcting the Zamindar of Benares of half a million sterling; and made it clear that the case was not a party issue, but one upon which members should vote according to their consciences."

"Yet, Sir," broke in Droopy Ned, "The Prime Minister stated on more than one occasion that Mr. Hastings is placed at a grave dis­advantage; in that many State papers which would show good reason for his acts cannot be made public without disclosing the secret under­standings that we have with certain of the native Princes."

"In the government of an Empire, my Lord, 'tis not particulars which should concern us so much as general principles."

Droopy waved a scented lace handkerchief airily beneath his long nose. "Perhaps, Sir, you can tell us then what principle it was that governed His Highness of Wales when, before the India debate early this month, he filled Mr. Erskine so full of brandy that his language to the Prime Minister would have made a Billingsgate fishwife blush?"

Fox laughed again. "If you would have us all set a limit on our potations before entering the House, my Lord, you should start with the Prime Minister. 'Twas but two nights later he was so in­disposed as to be unable to answer me; and that from having been drinking through the whole of the previous night at My Lord of Bucking­ham's with Harry Dundas and the Duchess of Gordon."

"Yet, Sir," interposed Roger. "I'll wager that he never forgot his manners."

"Nay. I'll give you that, young Sir. And I will admit that the language Erskine held in his personal attack passed all bounds of decency. But, as Lord Edward says, the Prince had primed him before he spoke, and we all know His Royal Highness's irresponsibility."

Fox spoke with restraint; yet he had ample reason to have used a far stronger term. The unnatural hatred that the Heir Apparent bore to his father had caused him, from his first entry upon manhood, to become the most ardent supporter of the Opposition. Fox being the King's bete noire, the young Prince had deliberately cultivated his friendship, and in return, that generous-hearted statesman had obtained from Parliament grants totalling many score thousands of pounds to enable His Highness both to set up an establishment of his own at Carlton House and to indulge his wildly extravagant tastes.

More, when the Prince had fallen desperately in love with Mrs. Fitzherbert it was Fox and Mrs. Armistead who had, night after night, consoled him in his tearful fits of despair because the lady would have none of him. Apart from the undesirability of any official union of the Heir Apparent and a commoner, on account of it being morganatic, Parliament viewed such a prospect with particularly grave alarm in the case of Maria Fitzherbert because she was a Roman Catholic; but she made no secret of the fact that her price was marriage.

In consequence, on his publicly establishing her in a larger residence,' members demanded a plain answer, if he were married to her or no, and made a further grant of funds to pay his mountainous debts dependent on the answer. Faced with this impasse in the previous April, the despicable young man had allowed Fox to issue a categorical denial on his behalf. Thus he had secured the supplies he needed by causing his bosom friend to appear a most barefaced liar; for Mrs. Fitzherbert, refusing to remain longer in what she considered an in­tolerable position, had forced the Prince to admit two days later, to Earl Grey, that he had been married to her on 15th December, '85— over sixteen months earlier—and it seemed impossible to everyone that Fox should not have been a party to their secret.

On learning the truth of the matter from Sir James Harris, Fox had felt so ashamed that he had absented himself from the House for several days, and his resentment against the Prince was such that he had refused to speak to him for the best part of a year. But rumour had it that they had recently become reconciled; since should any misfortune befall the King, it was certain that the Prince would call upon the Whigs to form a Ministry, and Charles James Fox was far too ambitious a man to allow a personal treachery to deprive him indefinitely of the chance of becoming Prime Minister.

Among the men grouped round the table in the Orangery there was a momentary silence, as all of them were thinking of the unsavoury episode that Fox's words had recalled, but Colonel Thursby swiftly filled the breach, by remarking: y

"A more narrow-minded and pig-headed man than our present Monarch it would be hard to find; but for all his selfishness 'tis difficult to believe that he deserved two such sons."

"You are right in that, Sir," agreed Droopy Ned. "And the Duke of York even outdoes the Prince in the besotted, boorish way he takes his pleasures. So plebeian are his tastes, and so little faith is to be

placed in his word, that the nobility of my own generation have now abjured his Grace entirely, and count his company mauvais ton."

"In that, Charles, we have the advantage of you at White's," smiled Selwyn. "I must say that I pity you at Brook's, across the way, in having to support the frequent presence of these two uncouth young rakehells."

" 'Tis so no longer, George," Fox countered swiftly. "Had you not heard that on H.R.H. proposing that fellow Tarleton, and Jack Payne, for membership we blackballed both of them, and that, in consequence, the two Royal sons have left us in a dudgeon? With some of their cronies they have started a new club of their own called Welzie's, at the Dover House, where General "Hyder Ali" Smith and Admiral Pigot are said to be rooking them of from two to three thousand guineas nightly."

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Duke of Bridgewater and his sister, Lady Amelia Egerton. He was a man of just over fifty, ill-dressed and of a somewhat unprepossessing counten­ance. In his childhood he had been so shamefully neglected by his step­father, and so sickly, that his mind had almost entirely failed to develop; so that, at the age of twelve, when his elder brother died, his exclusion from the dukedom on the grounds of feeble intellect had been seriously contemplated. The grand tour had done little to improve either his perceptions or his graces, and after an unhappy love-affair with one of the 'beautiful Miss Gunnings' he had, at the age of twenty-three, abandoned society to settle on his estates at Worsley, near Manchester.

It was there that his latent genius for all matters to do with com­merce, and particularly coal-mining, had developed. At times the financing of his vast canal schemes had reduced him almost to beggary, but now he was regarded as the uncrowned King of Manchester, and his industrial ventures alone were bringing him in an income of eighty thousand a year.

His sister, a pale spinster, kept house for him at Ashridge in Hert­fordshire, his southern seat; and she was the only woman that he could endure for any length of time, for he was so confirmed a misogynist that he would not even allow a woman to wait on him.

Lady Amelia had been brought by him at the special request of Georgina, who felt deeply sorry for the poor woman on account of the exceptionally circumscribed life she was compelled to lead; while his Grace had come solely because he wished to talk about steam-engines with Colonel Thursby.

Georgina's father was about the same age as the Duke but a thin-faced, delicate-looking man, and of very different personality. He was widely travelled, extremely well-read and a distinguished connoisseur of the arts. It was due to his loving fashioning of his daughter's mind that she possessed, in addition to her beauty, the ability to hold her own with most men in conversation on a great variety of subjects. Yet the Colonel, although a dilettante by nature, had once been an officer in the Corps of Engineers, and a streak of shrewdness had enabled him to foresee the financial possibilities of many of those new inventions which were already in the process of ushering in a new age. It was this which had led to his association with the Duke, Josiah Wedgewood, Sir James Arkwright and others; by participating in whose ventures he had, while still comparatively young, converted a modest patrimony into a fine fortune, thereby making Georgina a great heiress in her own right.

When the company had been presented to his Grace and Lady Amelia, Georgina suggested that they should take a turn round the gardens. The majority of her guests agreed to the proposal with alacrity, but the Duke gave her a lowering glance and shook his head.

Taking a huge snuff box from his pocket he helped himself to a lavish pinch, the bulk of which scattered down the already snuff-stained lapels of his coat, and declared.

"Flowers! I hate 'em! Some fool planted some at Worsley once. I struck their heads off with my cane and ordered 'em to be dug up. Waste of time and money! I'll stay here and talk to your father."

Colonel Thursby knew of old both the story and his friend's fanatical absorption in the useful to the complete exclusion of the beautiful. Himself a keen gardener, he had done much to add enchantment to the gardens at Stillwaters, and would have liked to go round them with the rest; but, concealing his disappointment with a politeness which was natural to him, he resigned himself to listen to a discourse by His Grace on experiments with steam-pumps in coal-mines, while the others followed Georgina out onto the terrace.

The sun had been shining all the morning in a serene, pale blue sky, and it was now the hottest hour of the afternoon; so that in this well-sheltered valley, although it was only the last day of March, it was as warm as if it had been early May. To the west of the house there was a Botticelli garden, which had been planted three years before by Colonel Thursby when Georgina came to live there. In it the young almond trees were already in blossom, and the cherries, crab-apples, mays and standard lilacs showing their buds. Beneath them small neat clusters of crocus and primroses starred the grass, and larger clumps of green spikes showed where narcissus, hyacinths and tulips would presently flower; so that in another month it would be an earthly Paradise.

As they stood admiring the prospect Georgina turned to Vorontzoff, who since his arrival had never left her side, and asked: "Is your Excellency fond of the country?"

"So much so, Madam, that I live in it," he replied at once.

"But surely your embassy is in London."

"Near London, but not in it. We occupy a pleasant old mansion in the St. John's Wood, a mile or so below the village of Hampstead. My staff insisted on calhng the place after me, but your London cock­neys find some difficulty in pronouncing my name, so it has become known as Woronzow House. I hope that you will allow me to entertain you there when you are next in London?"

"You are most kind," Georgina said with just a suggestion of primness. "But embassies are foreign soil, and we still have an old-fashioned law in England that a woman may not venture abroad without the consent of her husband."

"Then I shall beg you to break this foolish law," smiled the Count. He had already found out from Fox that Georgina's husband played a very small part in her life, but her reference to him implied that she was not a woman who would allow herself to be thought of as easy game. Without pressing the point he went on lightly, "At least I can promise you, Madam, that even if my house is part of my Imperial Mistress's dominions, you will never meet within it a temperature which will cause you to think yourself in Siberia."

She was secretly amused at the innuendo, but did not show it as she said: "Unfortunately it is not a matter of temperature but of con­vention, Monsieur, and there are times when I feel it proper to con­sult the wishes of my husband."

They had been conversing in French, but Fox, who had come up on Georgina's other side, now said in English: "I ran into Humphrey on Thursday. He was coming out of the family mansion in St. James's Square."

"Then thank God I was not in London," she remarked tartly. " 'Tis our only common meeting ground these days, and he seldom comes up for more than a few nights; but even that I find too much. I vow he bores me to distraction."

"He seemed mightily interested in you, all the same. When he learned that I was coming here he plied me with a host of questions; wanting to know who else would be in the party, who was here on my last visit, and whose houses you now most frequent when in the Metropolis."

Georgina frowned. "Damn the man's impertinence; prying into my affairs. I would to Heaven that I were rid of him."

"You may be soon," Fox laughed. "That is if he continues to drink and ride at such a furious pace. He was going down to stay at Goodwood this week-end, and spoke with enthusiasm of a most fractious gelding on which he vows he will win the point-to-point that is being held there to-day."

"Goodwood," Vorontzoff, suddenly broke in. "I believe I have been there. Is that not the name of the Duke of Richmond's seat in Sussex?"

"Why, yes, your Excellency," Georgina replied, a little taken aback. She had never heard the Ambassador speak in any language other than French, so had assumed that he knew very little English; but he had evidently understood her asides to Fox, and she was considerably disconcerted at the thought that he should have so soon discovered her true attitude towards her husband. Roger's attempt to dictate to her had driven her to defy him at the time, but she fully appreciated his feelings, and was most loath to do anything to hurt him; so she had intended to plead an old-fashioned loyalty to her spouse as a first-line of defence if the wooing of the Russian became too impetuous over the week-end, and now she had stupidly cut that ground from under her own feet.

As they moved on towards the glass-houses Vorontzoff launched into an amusing account of how, soon after his arrival in England, he had been invited down to Portsmouth to see something of the British Fleet, and his coachman, having taken a wrong turning, had got hope­lessly lost. Neither he nor his retainers being then able to speak a word of English, it was not until they had come out of some woods upon the Duke of Richmond's great house on the downs that they had found anyone who spoke French sufficiently fluently to set them on their way again.

For another hour or more the party continued to saunter round the gardens, then made the circuit of the great lake and returned to the house. Georgina took Lady Amelia and Mrs. Armistead up to their rooms, and her father performed a like office for the men guests, so that they might all change out of their travelling clothes and powder themselves for dinner.

On Roger's first coming to Stillwaters Georgina had put him in her husband's old room. As it lay on the far side of her boudoir the proprieties were reasonably preserved, yet the arrangement had the advantage that he could come in to her at any time without being seen entering or leaving her room by the main corridor.

Having pulled off his coat and thrown it on the bed he cast a look of uncertainty at the boudoir door. He was in half a mind to ignore her prohibition and go in to her now, in the hope of patching up their quarrel. Their love-affair had been such splendid fun, and even if they had been getting on one another's nerves a little lately, it seemed tragic that it should end like this.

As he looked at the door and recalled the joyous hours of love and laughter that he had spent on the far side of it during the past months, he knew that he was very far from being tired of Georgina, and he did not believe that she was tired of him. Perhaps she was right in her contention that mutual passion could not endure for any great length of time in two such volatile natures as theirs, when given full rein, and that their only hope of a second innings lay in parting for a season before their desire for one another had burnt right out. But he felt certain that the break need not have come yet, or with such lack of grace, had it not been for the machinations of the unscrupulous Mr. Fox.

With his hands thrust deep in his breeches-pockets Roger began to pace gloomily up and down. He had little doubt that Fox knew, as well as he knew himself, Georgina's boundless ambition. She loved to rule and to influence important people; and had often vowed to him that she would be a Duchess before her hair turned grey. In spite of her temporary pessimism that she might be tied to her present husband for some years to come, he considered the odds to be all against that; and once Sir Humphrey Etheredge was dead she would be free to take her pick from a score of Earls and Marquesses. Then, if she had rendered valuable assistance to Fox and he came to power, as she clearly expected him to do, she might reasonably count on his forcing the King to elevate her second husband to a Dukedom. That, Roger felt, was the essence of some, probably unspoken, pact that lay between them; and Fox, needing the Russian influence for some dirty piece of business the Opposition were plotting against the Government, was now pressing for her immediate aid in securing the goodwill of Vorontzoff.

Against such pressure could be set the fact that, although Georgina's gipsy blood made her as amoral as the average man, nothing would induce her to take a lover whom she did not fancy. But, here again, Fox had played his cards with his usual shrewdness; since he must be aware that one of the weaknesses in Georgina's otherwise strong char­acter was her love of the bizarre. It was as good as certain that when he selected heir, as the best bait with which he could attempt the snaring of Vorontzoff, he had also counted on the streak of barbarism that underlay the Muscovite's cosmopolitan polish, as the very thing most calculated to appeal to her tastes.

While they had all been walking round the grounds Roger had purposely refrained from forcing himself on Georgina, but his eyes never left her for long, and he was so well acquainted with every fine of her expressive face that he felt certain the Russian had succeeded in both amusing and intriguing her. From his own experience he knew that if a man could do that with a woman who already regarded him as a potential lover, he had more than half-won his battle; its victorious conclusion was then seldom more than a question of time and oppor­tunity.

The full weakness of his own position was suddenly borne home to Roger on a wave of distress. In the course of an unofficial honeymoon lasting nearly half a year he had given himself with all the joyous vigour of youth, both in body and mind, to Georgina; and now he had nothing fresh left to offer.

There seemed no alternative but for him to swallow the bitter pill and resign himself to the triumph of his rival, of whose appearance on the scene he had had so little warning. The only question now remaining was, would the beautiful Georgina present him with a pair of horns over the week-end, or not?

Left to her own inclinations he felt sure that, out of consideration for him, she would refrain. But he had no means of judging how press­ing was Fox's need of Vorontzoff's co-operation, and feared that if it was urgent, since Georgina obviously regarded herself as perfectly free, she might precipitate matters on that account.

Roger was a typical product of his age. He was bold, resourceful, and, while setting a high value on his personal honour, could be quite unscrupulous in serving what he considered to be justifiable ends. He had developed into a man of the world while still in his teens, and his excellent education in the classics, coupled with his personal experience of eighteenth-century life, had led him to regard all sex-relationships with detached cynicism. Yet, in addition to his dark blue eyes, he had inherited from his Highland mother a romantic streak, and it was this which entered into his long relationship with Georgina.

Had she been any other woman he would either have let her go with a shrug or wept, prayed, cursed and threatened suicide in a desperate endeavour to keep her faithful. But, for him, Georgina was neither a light-of-love nor a grand passion. She was something apart which had grown up with him out of his boyhood, and while he was now quite prepared to kiss and leave her for a season, all his romantic feelings cried out against their parting being marred by her being unfaithful to him before he had even left the house.

Again he glanced uncertainly at the boudoir-door. If he told her that it would really hurt him he knew that she would place his feelings before all else. But he suddenly realised that he had left it too late. Her maid, Jenny, would be with her by this time, helping her to dress, and as Jenny had to clear up afterwards she would not leave the room again until after her mistress had gone down to dinner. Georgina had no secrets from Jenny, but this was not a matter that could be dis­cussed before a maid.

Taking off his frilled shirt he slowly began to change; his sense of injury and frustration steadily mounting while he dressed. As the Daniel Quare clock on the marble mantelpiece of his room chimed four o'clock, powdered, pomarded and most elegantly clad in a suit of lavender blue silk, he went downstairs; now obsessed with a cold, angry deter­mination to resort to desperate measures to spike the Russian's guns.

CHAPTER III

A DESPERATE GAMBLE

ALTHOUGH the usual hour for dinner among the gentry of England was still four o'clock, a tendency had already started in the fashionable world to dine somewhat later, and Georgina had recently put the meal on to half-past; so Roger had ample time to prepare the scheme that he had hatched while dressing, for the discomfiture of the Russian Ambassador.

Going into the big drawing-room that was always used when Georgina had company, he opened a walnut bureau in which, he knew, a. morocco-leather case was kept containing a special set of cards for playing Pharo. It held six packs, all having the same backs, but no cards of a lesser value than the tens. Four of the packs, making eighty cards in all, were used in play; the other two packs were spares for the lay out. From the latter he removed two Aces, two Kings and two Queens, which he secreted about his person, placing the Aces and Kings under his cuffs and the Queens in an inside pocket of his coat which was low down on a level with his left hip.

It was a foregone conclusion that in a party such as this there would be cards after dinner, for those who wished to play, and an almost equal certainty that the game chosen would be Pharo, as that was both fashionable and Georgina's favourite gamble. Roger had never cheated at cards in his life, but he meant to do so on this occasion, for a par­ticular purpose, and about his intention he did not feel the least scruple.

For some ten minutes he remained alone, standing straddle-legged in front of the big log-fire, then Colonel Thursby joined him and shortly afterwards the other guests began to trickle down. Georgina arrived last, with a flutter of entirely insincere apologies to the other ladies, for she dearly loved to make an entrance, and had never been known to appear for dinner until the whole company was assembled.

She was dressed to-night entirely in white, her full bare shoulders rising like those of some dark Venus from a sea of thin silk; but, splendid as she looked, Roger thought that certain colours suited her voluptuous beauty better. To himself he hazarded a guess that she had selected this virginal costume to intrigue the sophisticated Russian.

Immediately on Georgina's arrival, the butler threw open the double doors and announced that Her Ladyship was served; upon which, they went in to dinner.

Colonel Thursby, as host, gave his arm to Lady Amelia, and Count Vorontzoff followed with Mrs. Armistead. Droopy Ned then bowed to Mr. Fox, who in turn bowed to George Selwyn as the eldest among them, but having returned the bow, he stepped back a pace, insisting that the younger son of the Marquis of Amesbury was the proper person to lead in the unattached males. Georgina then brought up the rear with her principal guest, the ponderous Duke.

Nearly everyone at the table had been brought up to regard good talk as of as much importance as good clothes. From their youth they had cultivated repartee as an art, and quite naturally vied with each other in capping one another's sallies. In deference to Vorontzoff much of the conversation was in French, but even had he not been there French expressions would have found frequent utterance, as it was considered fashionable to use them; and Latin tags were bandied about without the least suggestion of priggishness, since everyone present knew their meaning.

For the best part of two hours oysters, lobsters, trout, salmon, a sucking pig, a saddle of lamb, capons, ducks, pies, pasties, meringues, jellies and hot-house fruit, were devastated by the gargantuan appe­tites with which a life-time of habit had equipped the men and women of those times; each item being washed down with a glass of Chablis, Rhenish, Sillery, Claret or Champagne. At length Georgina caught Lady Amelia's eye, upon which the ladies left the men to belch at their ease and settle down to a little really serious drinking.

Fox was soon launched on a series of bawdy stories that set the table in a roar; Selwyn, Vorontzoff, Droopy Ned and Roger all con­tributed a few. Colonel Thursby, like a good host, kept the port cir­culating, and encouraged them with a quip here and there. Only the lugubrious Duke remained silent. He seemed to have neither humour nor humanity, but possibly he was moderately contented in his own queer way; as, immediately the ladies left the room he had fetched a long churchwarden pipe, and ever since he had been puffing at it like a suction engine, so that he was now surrounded by a cloud of smoke as dense as that issuing from one of his new factory chimneys. The others had given up all attempts to draw him into their merri­ment, and for them laughter and jest caused three-quarters of an hour to vanish in what seemed only the twinkling of an eye.

During the gale of mirth that followed some witty French verses with which Droopy Ned had delighted the company, Vorontzoff stood up, and, bowing slightly to Colonel Thursby, left the room by its main door, which gave on to the hall. The Colonel had already turned his attention to Selwyn, who had just started on some equally amusing couplets, so he caught Roger's eye and made a faint sign to him.

Roger guessed at once what was in the Colonel's mind. Through another door, at the opposite end of the room, one of those new innovations, a water-closet, had been installed, and they had all used it within the past hour, so it could not be for that reason that the Ambassador had left them. The Colonel feared that he might be feeling ill, and since he could not without rudeness break away from Selwyn, he wished Roger, as the guest who was best acquainted with the house, to follow Vorontzoff and ascertain what ailed him.

Getting to his feet, Roger hurried after the Russian, and caught up with him on the far side of the hall. With a quick bow he said politely: "Colonel Thursby sent me after your Excellency to inquire your reason for leaving us. I trust that you are not indisposed?"

The Ambassador smiled, and replied with equal courtesy: "Why, no, I thank you. But in the country from which I come a lady occupies the throne. With us, too, the men like to sit over their wine after dinner, but my Imperial mistress is apt to become a trifle bored if left too long in the company of her women. So it has become customary for one of us to leave our companions and place ourselves at her disposal. 'Tis a pleasant courtesy, I think, and in pursuance of it I am about to seek the Lady Georgina."

"Indeed!" said Roger, stiffly. "In that case pray do not let me detain your Excellency."

Whether the Russian was telling the truth or had just thought up the story, he had no idea; but to leave one's host prematurely for the purpose of getting in first with the ladies, was according to English standards, an abominable piece of rudeness. As Roger bowed again and turned away, he realised to his chagrin that by this skilful move Vorontzoff had secured himself a good hour, in virtually a free field, to develop his pursuit of Georgina. However, there seemed no way in which he could have prevented it, and, angrily consigning all for­eigners to the devil, he went back to the dining-room.

During his short absence the atmosphere had undergone a sudden change and they were now talking politics. In his languid voice Droopy Ned was putting up an extremely able advocacy of Pitt's contention that the East India Company, and not the nation, was liable for the cost of the transport of four additional regiments of troops that had been sent out to India during the war-scare of the previous summer.

The question had recently been fought most bitterly in the House; not so much on its own account but as a fresh battle-ground on which to deploy those divergent views about the reconstruction of the Government of India, which had occupied so much of Parliament's time in the past few years.

With grandiloquent gestures and melodious voice Fox reiterated several of the most telling arguments that he had employed against the Government; but he failed to shake the stooping, short-sighted young nobleman, and at length he said good-humorously: "When may we welcome you to a seat in the House, my Lord? 'Tis the natural habitat of the younger sons of peers, as* witness both Mr. Pitt and myself. Your logic and tenacity would do you credit there."

"I vow you flatter me, Sir." Droopy bowed across the table. "But even were I competent to play such a part, I should be loath to sacrifice the pursuits that already occupy a great part of my time."

"And what may they be?" inquired the Duke, suddenly emerging from his long silence.

"I, er—experiment on myself with rare drugs, and collect antique jewellery."

"Antiques, eh!" the Duke grunted. "Waste of time and money. When I was taken to Rome as a young man my fool of a tutor argued me into buying some marbles. Feller called Wood, I remember. They're still in their packing-cases somewhere. I've never had time to open the damn things, and don't suppose I ever shall."

Droopy raised his quizzing-glass and remarked a trifle acidly: "Among such marbles 'tis a fair bet that there are certain of the Roman gods. Since your Grace has elected to keep them hidden from mortal eyes for some thirty eyes, 'tis clear that you can have little sympathy with my third interest—the study of ancient religions."

"No, none whatever," replied the Duke, with the bluntness of a Dr. Johnson; to whom in fact some people considered that he had a certain resemblance. "Not only are such studies futile, but they may even become dangerous; for all Pagan religions were the invention of the Devil."

Roger had not been taking much interest in the conversation, as his mind was on Vorontzoff and Georgina; and he was wondering if by this time the Russian had managed to separate her from the other two ladies on some pretext, such as showing him her collection of silver toys, in the far drawing-room, so that he could whisper sweet nothings to her at his leisure. But he now came to the rescue of his friend, by saying:

"Surely your Grace would not lump the religion of the Greeks and Romans with the Devil-worship of more primitive peoples?"

"Sir, I would indeed!" came the prompt response. "For the former developed directly from the latter."

"Permit me to disagree," declared Droopy quickly. "And I have spent much time investigating the origins of both."

"If the rituals of Satanism interest you, my Lord, you should con­sult George Selwyn on that subject," Fox cut in with a laugh. "Ask him to tell you how he once raised the Devil."

All eyes were immediately turned on tine benign, bishop-like face of the elderly wit, who said with rueful smile: "It seems that I shall never live down my association with the Hell-Fire Club, although 'tis so long ago. Its heyday was in the late '50s, and in '62, the year that Dashwood both succeeded to his Barony and became Chancellor of the Exchequer, 'twas disbanded. That is before some of you were born, so I pray you let it rest."

"Nay, nay!" cried Colonel Thursby. "Everyone knows that you were a leading member of it, and I've often meant to inquire of you what really went on there. Tell us, I beg?"

Except by the Duke, who had retired once more into his smoke screen, Selwyn was pressed on all sides, so after a moment, he said:

"Since you insist, I'll give you the gist of it. The idea originated with Sir Francis Dashwood one night at White's. My Lord Sandwich, Charles Churchill, Bubb-Dodington, Paul Whitehead, Robert Lloyd and myself, were other moving spirits in the affair. We had all become un peu blaséwith the easy favours of society women and the ladies of the Italian Opera, so we were seeking a new outlet for our amorous propensities. Dashwood urged the claims of a masquerade with its dual attraction of dressing-up and the amusement of laying siege to an un­known partner. He proposed that we should form a new order of St. Francis, but differing from the old in that Venus should be the object of our worship; and that the rites and ceremonies to be performed should culminate in a Bacchic orgy.

"For the scene of this frolic, and it started as no more, Dashwood selected the half-ruined Abbey of Medmenham. 'Tis on an island in the Thames 'twixt Marlow and Henley, and is a most lovely spot. Later we took to gathering for a fortnight there each summer. Part of the place was made habitable, the larder and the cellar amply stocked, and a well-known bawd in Southwark brought down a score of well-chosen nymphs. We were all clad as monks, and the women, all heavily veiled, were habited as nuns. When we had dined in the old refectory, we repaired to the ruined church, and later, danced in it. As you can imagine the wine flowed freely, and on many a moonlight night we created merry Hell there."

"Oh, come, George!" protested Droopy Ned, "there must have been more to it than ordinary debauchery if, as Mr. Fox tells us, you suc­ceeded in raising the Devil."

Selwyn looked a trifle sheepish. " 'Tis true that an element crept into those meetings which had no connection with our original intent­ions. Once in our cups the atmosphere of the place and the garments that we wore led us into all sorts of senseless follies. All of us were staunch Protestants, and though I confess it was in bad taste, there were times when we thought it something of a jest to parody the Roman Catholic rituals."

Everyone present guessed that Selwyn was referring to the celebration of the Black Mass, but no one liked to question him about it, and Droopy said: "There is nothing new in that, either. I have oft read accounts of such practices; but 'twould be a genuine novelty to talk with a man who has actually seen His Satanic Majesty. Did he in truth ever appear at your bidding?"

"Not at mine, but at another's."

"You saw him, though?" '

"Yes, once. At least, if not himself 'twas the very image of him." "What looked he like?"

"He was not as tall as myself but with broad shoulders and most powerfully built. He was black and hairy, with a flattened skull and red eyes gleaming from it like live coals."

"Odds blood!" exclaimed the ColoneL "I marvel that you did not all die of fright."

"We near did. My scalp still prickles at the recalling of it. Half our company fled into the night and did not stop running till they reached Marlow. The braver of us remained from a natural impulse to protect the women, the greater part of whom had fainted. But after suffering a few moments of stark terror, our courage was well rewarded."

"How so?" asked Droopy.

Selwyn smiled. "By the discovery that our visitor was quite a friendly fellow and asked no more than to take supper with us.

"George, you are romancing," Droopy laughed. "I'll not believe it."

" 'Tis true. I pledge you my word. On closer acquaintance he proved to be a tame chimpanzee hired from a circus. That irrepressible joker John Wilkes was one of our company. He had brought the ape down earlier in the day and hidden him in a box beneath the altar. Then, just as Dashwood in the role of High Priest was about to make the offering to Venus upon it, Wilkes pressed a spring and the creature jumped out."

Fox's corpulent body rocked and the tears came into his eyes with mirth, as he chortled: "Stap me! But I'd have given as much as I won at Newmarket last year for a sight of poor Dashwood's face."

"Aye, one can laugh over it after all these years," said Selwyn soberly. "But it taught us a lesson we never forgot; and 'twas the end of the Hell-Fire Club. Wilkes's ape was too like the real thing for us ever again to play at being monks and nuns, by night, in the ruins of Medmenham Abbey."

"What a character Wilkes is!" exclaimed the Colonel. "He must have caused more commotions in the past half-century than any man in England."

"Than any ten," cried Fox. "The controversy over that article of his in the North Briton, his suspension as a Member of Parliament and arrest, near caused a revolution. For twelve years the electors of Middlesex refused to be represented by any other candidate and repeat­edly brought actions aimed at forcing the House to re-accept him. More of our time was spent in losing our tempers over John Wilkes than we gave in succeeding sessions to debating the American war."

"I wonder you don't blush to recall it, Charles," Selwyn smiled, "seeing that the part you played in hounding him, and battling to restrict the liberties of the press, was so contrary to your present principles."

The wily politician shrugged. "Times change, George. I was then a young full-blooded aristocrat with little understanding of what is due to the common people. 'Tis strange to think, though, that I was once a King's man, hot to defend all privilege, whereas now Farmer George has not a subject in his whole realm that he hates more bitterly than myself."

"In that you have changed places with Wilkes, Sir," Roger laughed. "For time was when the King counted him his worst enemy; yet I have heard it said that more recently, when Wilkes had to present a petition as Lord Mayor of London, his Majesty said that he had never met a more civil man in all his life."

" 'Tis true," Fox acknowledged. "And there again, see how time's magic brings the most amazing changes in the affairs of men. For who would have thought that after the publication of Wilkes' licentious 'Essay on Women,' the straight-laced City Fathers could ever have brought themselves to elect him their Chief Magistrate; or that as a sometime member of the Hell-Fire Club he should now be spending his declining years in the grave role of City Chancellor."

"The public memory is ever plaguey short," remarked Colonel Thursby. "His private immoralities have long been submerged in most men's minds by his vast popularity, and no man of his generation has done more for the preservation of the people's liberties."

Fox nodded. "Wilkes and Liberty! For a score of years anyone could raise a mob at a moment's notice by that cry. I'll not forget how, after one of my speeches against him in the House, they attacked my coach and rolled me in the mud; or the cheering thousands who drew him in triumph up Ludgate Hill after he was at last released from prison. Yet, to the detriment of my own hopes of reform, a sad apathy seems to have seized upon the public mind of recent years; and there is no longer that stalwart spirit of resistance to the abuses of the Ministerial power that there was when Wilkes defied the King."

"The reason for that is not far to seek, Sir," said Droopy Ned. " 'Twas the excesses committed by the mob during the Gordon riots that put a check upon its power. That hydra-headed monster seized upon the project of extending toleration to the Roman Catholic faith as a pretext for glutting its carnal appetites. All those who saw large parts of London ablaze have since had a feeling of acute distrust for popular movements. The King alone kept his head in the crisis, and insisted on calling out the troops for the rounding up of those hordes of drunken looters; so 'tis but natural that all law-abiding people should have come to look on him as the saviour of society."

Roger was still thinking fitfully of Georgina and waiting with some anxiety for the time to pass until they would join the ladies, so that he could put into operation his plan for the discomfiture of the Russian; but he now remarked: "It may well be that the brief reign of terror that so horrified everyone in June '80 will save the country from something far worse in the next decade. Discontent against the old order of things is rife in every country on the continent, particularly France, from whence I returned last autumn after a residence of four years. The middle-classes there are now leagued solidly with the masses in their demand for an end of privilege, and even the nobility them­selves have come to regard a revolution as inevitable."

Droopy nodded. "Thou art right about the people of London, Roger. Having seen for themselves the horrid violence of which the mob is capable they will be mighty chary of letting it get loose again."

"That sounds good sense," Fox agreed. "And, as far as France is concerned, I would be the last to gainsay Mr. Brook's contention that we may soon see grave disorders there. The oppression and abuses under which the people of that great nation groan have detached the sym­pathy of all decent men from its Government; and Louis XVI is far too weak and vacillating a Monarch to succeed in maintaining his authority much longer. The sweeping away of the parasites who batten on the throne is generations overdue, and I'll be the first to acclaim it. Through its blindness and extravagance the Monarchy itself has long been riding for a fall, and should it be shaken to its foundations, so much the better. The humbling of that pair of wastrels at Versailles may well have excellent repercussions at Windsor."

"Nay, nay, Sir," cried Colonel Thursby. "I do protest that there you have allowed your feelings to run away with your sense of com­parison. Whatever may be the faults of King George and Queen Charlotte no one could accuse them of being wastrels. Why, all the world knows that they entertain but once a week, and keep so poor a table that even the most spartan Ministers shun an invitation to it."

" 'Tis the fact," laughed Droopy. "Have you not heard the latest of the Queen's economies. 'Tis said that throughout the week she saves every crust from the Royal table; then has them stuck like a fence round a mess of cooked apple and served at her Saturday parties under the name of Charlotte Russe."

So, for another half-hour, the talk ran on, alternating between the grave and gay and covering another score of subjects, till the Colonel glanced at his watch and said: "Gentlemen, 'tis after eight and I am sure some of you must be eager to get to the card-table, so I suggest that we join the ladies."

In the drawing-room matters were just as Roger had suspected. Lady Amelia had brought down her needlework, and seated by the fire, was explaining various intricate stitches to the tactful and self-effacing Mrs. Armistead; while, well out of earshot at the far end of the long room, Georgina was lending an attentive ear to the Am­bassador.

As the men entered, and she stood up to curtsy in response to their bows, they all exclaimed in surprise and admiration. She was no longer dressed in her creation of white silk, but in the gay Russian peasant costume that Vorontzoff had brought her, having, as she told them, changed into it with the help of the other two ladies immediately on leaving the dining-room.

The rich colouring of the embroideries and the horse-shoe shaped headdress suited her dark beauty to perfection, and although men were used to seeing women in riding-boots, there seemed to them something terrifically daring in their combination with knee-high petticoats. Raising their quizzing-glasses they crowded round her like bees about a honey-pot, and even his Grace of Bridgewater was heard to declare: " 'Tis a demmed sensible costume, and for the life of me I can't think why women don't wear such short skirts habitually."

When the sensation had subsided Georgina rang for the footmen to bring in a large card-table and began to count heads as to who wished to play. The Colonel and his Grace excused themselves on the plea of wanting to talk business and repaired to the library. Lady Amelia said that she never touched a card but would be quite happy to continue with her needlework. Fox, Selwyn, Vorontzoff, Droopy and Mrs. Armistead all declared themselves enchanted to join Georgina in a game of Pharo, then she looked interrogatively at Roger.

She knew that he could not afford to play, even for stakes which would be considered quite modest by the others; and, knowing that Lady Amelia would not play, she had counted on being able to spare him the embarrassment of a refusal, by indicating that politeness enjoined that someone should keep Lady Amelia company.

Her glance, moving with apparent casualness to the spinster by the fire, clearly suggested the line of retreat that she expected him to take; but, to her surprise, he ignored it and said: "Your servant, Madam, I will take a hand with pleasure."

The seven of them then settled themselves round the big card-table and began to share out the engraved mother-of-pearl counters, which were of several different shapes. After some discussion it was agreed that the rounds should represent crowns, the squares half-guineas, the oblongs guineas and the octagonals five-pound pieces; that five pounds should be the maximum for any initial bet and that no player should be allowed to leave his stake on to double up more than five times. Roger having elected to play, Georgina had deliberately kept the stakes down as low as she reasonably could, but she was conscious that the limit must now appear pettifogging to a man like Fox who on many occasions had won or lost upwards of ten thousand pounds in a night at Brook's or Almack's; so she smiled at him and said:

"With so low a maximum, Charles, this makes but a baby game for you. I trust you'll bear with our modest habits when in the country."

"M'dear," he laughed good-humorously. " 'Tis a favour you do me; since nine times out of every ten that I play I finish up a loser."

On the cards being dealt round the first bank fell to Vorontzoff, who at once proceeded to make the lay-out from one of the spare packs.

The game required no skill, and was the simplest form of straight gamble. The banker merely laid out in a row in front of him an Ace, King, Queen, Knave and Ten, upon which the players placed their bets. He then dealt through the four-pack deck from which all the lower cards had been eliminated, laying each card face up, as he turned it over, to his right and left alternatively. At the beginning of each hand he declared whether he would pay out on the cards which fell to his right or to his left, and on the opposite pile he drew in. As each card was exposed he either won or lost on its equivalent Ace, King, Queen, Knave or Ten, until he had run through the deck, upon which the bank passed to the player on his left and the process was repeated.

Since only the banker handled the cards it was impossible for anyone to cheat at the game until the bank came to them; but, given the bank, an expert could so manipulate the pack as to ensure that certain of the cards equivalent to those on the table carrying the most money should fall upon the winning side. Roger was no expert, and the last thing he wished to do was to win money by cheating Georgina or any of her friends. When the bank came to him he meant to play one of his hidden cards against the card Vorontzoff had put his money on, and deliberately allow the Russian to catch him cheating.

While dressing he had racked his brains in vain for a legitimate method of heading the Russian off from his quarry, and the only means he had been able to think of was to force a duel upon him. However pressing his rival's attentions might be, he felt confident that Georgina set too high a value on herself to succumb to him on the night of his arrival. But given the Saturday afternoon and evening, and all Sunday, for gentle dalliance, if her inclinations tended that way and Fox stressed the urgency of winning the Russian to the interests of the Opposition, it was quite on the cards that she might grant him the opportunity for which he was obviously so eager before the week-end was out. Having already met him several times in London, that, according to the lax standards of the day, would not be unduly to cheapen herself.

Therefore, Roger had argued to himself, his object would be achieved if he could render the Russian hors de combatduring the next, twelve hours. The prospect of a duel had no terrors for him, since he had fought three already, and knew himself to be an extremely accom­plished swordsman. The fact that duels were forbidden in England also gave him few qualms, as the penalties were rarely pressed unless one of the combatants was killed, and he had no intention of doing more than disabling his potential adversary. The problem that remained was how to force a quarrel on Vorontzoff that night so that he would be compelled to fight first thing the following morning.

At this point in his deliberations Roger had found himself badly stuck. To pick a quarrel with a man was easy enough, but while he was Georgina's guest he could not possibly openly insult the Russian. He might by so doing achieve his object, but at too high a price. Georgina would be so disgusted with his behaviour that it might make a per­manent breach between them, and that he was not prepared to risk on any account. It had then occurred to him that this difficulty could be got over if he could so arrange matters that the Russian insulted him. Cheating at cards was by no means unusual, even in private houses, but if the person cheated was a man of spirit he would naturally denounce the cheat; upon which the cheat would either attempt to laugh it off and pay up or declare himself insulted and demand satis­faction. Roger knew that as he was not a habitual gambler, if he handled matters skilfully, no one except Vorontzoff would believe that he had cheated and it would be considered perfectly natural for him to call the Russian out.

In view of his intentions Roger was anxious that he should finish up a loser rather than a winner on the evening's game; but on the other hand he could ill-afford to lose any considerable sum, so during the first round of banks he confined himself to punting in five-shilling chips and on most occasions when he won leaving his money on so that when the cards turned against him at his second, third or fourth double he appeared to be losing quite a lot, although, in fact, he had only lost his original stake. Normally the steady drain of such a policy would have cost him five or six pounds, but it seemed that his luck was in as on two occasions his stake doubled up to the agreed limit of five times and he had to take it off, in each case his five shillings having become eight pounds; so when the bank came round to him he was thirteen pounds in hand.

As each player could limit his bets at will the only chance of any individual losing really heavily was when they took a bank, since they were then pitted against the whole table and had to accept the heaviest bets as well as smaller ones. In this case, five pounds being the limit, if such a bet was left on and doubled up five times, the banker might go down one hundred and sixty pounds against a single player. All the odds were that he would get a considerable part of it back from the others, but it was a risk that had to be faced and a heavy one for Roger. Normally, he would either have passed his bank or sold it, as he had a right to do. Mrs. Armistead had just sold hers to Fox for twenty pounds and Georgina had passed hers. Knowing Roger's financial circumstances she naturally expected him to do the same, so she was surprised and a little worried when she saw him making the cards with the obvious intention of taking it.

After a moment she said: "I think 'twould pleasure me to take the bank after all; will you sell me yours, Sir? I'll bid you twenty pounds for it."

Roger was touched by her offer. She was, he guessed, assuming that as he had won money on the round he felt that he ought to give the other players a chance to win it back, and had made the offer solely with the idea of enabling him to avoid the risk of losing more than he could afford. But he smiled at her and shook his head. "I thank you, Madam, but I've a feeling that my luck is in to-night, so I will take it myself."

As they had been playing for the best part of an hour he felt that he might quite well take advantage of his first bank to develop his plot, instead of waiting for it to come round to him again. Fox and Vorontzoff were both playing the maximum all the time; Selwyn, Droopy and Georgina were playing in guineas or occasionally more when they felt that they were due for a win, and Mrs. Armistead, like Roger, had confined herself to the lowest stake. Up to about half-way through the deck the bank ran about even, then Fox doubled up three times and knocked Roger down for forty pounds. Soon afterwards Vorontzoff's stake upon the Ace also doubled up to forty pounds, and he still left it on.

It was the chance for which Roger had been waiting. He put down the cards for a moment to take out his handkerchief and blow his nose. While putting his handkerchief back he took an Ace out of his cuff and palmed it onto the top of the pack as he picked the cards up again. He then turned it up on the winning pile and scooped Vorontzoff's forty pounds off the ace.

As he was not a card-sharper the task he had set himself was no easy one. Thelast thing he wanted was for anyone other than the Russian to accuse him of cheating, so he dared not do so openly. He was counting on the fact that habitual players only take particular notice of their own losses, so that if Vorontzoff had more than average ill-luck while his neighbour was banker he would begin to watch the turning of the cards with additional care, and thus spot the cheating while it passed unnoticed by the others.

Towards the end of his bank Roger again blew his nose and, during the process, managed to get a King out of his other cuff. The Russian had doubled up twice on the King and by playing the card Roger took a further twenty pounds off him. Vorontzoff made no remark as Roger raked in the counters, but gave him a rather searching look, so he felt satisfied that during his first bank he had succeeded in arousing his enemy's suspicions.

Fox's forty pound win had hit the bank badly and without the Russian's money it would have shown a loss of twenty-six. As it was, including Roger's original gain of thirteen, he was now forty-eight up. However, he regarded Vorontzoff's sixty pounds as a liability since, had there been no cheating, the Russian might equally well have won double that or lost the lot; so Roger felt that when he had put his rival out of the running for Georgina he was under a moral obligation to return his stakes to him. In consequence, he regarded himself on balance, as now being twelve pounds down.

During the second round of the bank he once more staked only single crowns, but luck being with him in the main he made up eight pounds of his net loss. To all appearances he was doing excellently, as when the bank came to him again he had over sixty pounds worth of chips in front of him; so Georgina, knowing nothing of his secret liability, made no further attempt to protect him from the chances he seemed perfectly content to take.

His bank opened well for him and within five minutes he had taken a profit of over thirty pounds. Selwyn then scooped sixteen off him and Georgina twelve, so two-thirds of the way through the deck he was running more or less even. But the thing which perturbed him was that Vorontzoff was now betting consistently on the Ten, and, not having thought it wise to take too many cards from the spare packs, Roger had no hidden ten to play against him. Having played the ten for some time without any marked success the Russian suddenly changed to the King and his stake began to double up. When it had reached forty pounds Roger casually inquired what the time was. Everybody glanced towards the clock upon the mantelpiece, except Vorontzoff, and as Roger slipped his second King out of his cuff, several of the players murmured: " 'Tis just on ten."

Roger played the King, feeling certain that his victim must have seen mm fluff the card on to the top of the pack. As he stretched out his hand to take the stake he expected every instant that Vorontzoff would denounce him, but to his amazement, the Russian let him rake in the counters without making any protest; yet, as he glanced at him he caught a faint, hard smile of understanding in his dark Tartar eyes.

Momentarily, Roger was a further forty up, but his bank ended with a run of ill-luck. Droopy suddenly doubled up on three success­ive Aces and took thirty-two pounds, Selwyn had also been on the Ace and took ten, and on the very last card, a Queen, Fox took twenty. Roger still had a fair pile of chips in front of him, but on check­ing up he found to his considerable alarm that he was now over sixty pounds out of pocket in addition to his moral obligation of a further hundred to Vorontzoff.

He realised now that he had been incredibly foolish to choose cards as a means of getting at the Russian Ambassador; as his plan necessitated his taking the bank, and he had overlooked the fact that, quite apart from any sum which he might feel in honour bound to make good to his enemy, he would be laying himself open to much greater losses than he could afford to the other players.

His only consolation was a confident belief that at his next bank he would achieve his object. The glimpse he had caught of the Russian's eyes had convinced him that his victim now knew positively that he was being rooked; and there seemed little doubt that he was only waiting for a chance to pounce when there was a better prospect that someone else at the table might also see what was going on. Roger knew that to avoid such a calamity he would need all the skill he could muster, as Vorontzoff was now watching him like a lynx, and might, if he could catch him taking the next card from his cuff, expose him in front of the whole company before he could get it on to the table.

As the bank went round again Roger became more and more miserable and depressed; and the fact that he was winning small sums fairly consistently did little to cheer him. He felt that he must have been absolutely crazy to embark on this wild-cat scheme and would never have done so had he given the matter proper thought. Just before he had come down to dinner it had seemed so simple, but he knew now that his jealousy and resentment had temporarily obscured his judgment, and led him to act on an inspiration which was not only fundamentally dishonest but needed the abilities of a pro­fessional card-sharper to carry through. Yet, having once made up his mind to a course it was against his whole nature to abandon it, and the very fact that he was now so heavily committed made him more determined than ever to play the game out to its end.

Georgina, having seen how heavily he had gone down on his last bank, made a further attempt to rescue him while he appeared to have some of his earlier winnings in hand. While the bank was still two away from him she yawned and said: " 'Tis getting quite late for a country bumpkin, like myself. What say you to ceasing play after the next hand?"

"But 'tis barely eleven o'clock," remarked Fox in some surprise, and Vorontzoff added with a gallant little bow:

"Only a clod, Madam, would seek to rob so lovely a lady of her beauty sleep; yet if a further twenty minutes will not cause a dimming of your eyes to-morrow, I pray you let the bank complete its third round, as Mr. Brook has taken a hundred or so off me, and I would fain have a chance to get it back."

To that there could be only one answer, so play went on, and in due course the cards were shuffled for Roger's third bank. He had now only two Queens and an Ace, left so his opportunities for cheating were limited to two out of the five cards on the table, and to his annoy­ance, Vorontzoff once more favoured the Ten. Since it was the last hand all the players, except Georgina and Mrs. Armistead, were putting on the limit, but for a third of the deck their bets practically cancelled each other's out; then Fox and Droopy entered on a run of bad luck, both losing five pounds a time on the Ace for two runs of six and four respectively, but Vorontzoff won a coup of forty pounds on the Ten, thus reducing Roger's hundred pound gain from the other two to sixty and making him, apart from his moral liability to the Russian, all square within a few pounds.

Having gathered up his winnings Vorontzoff began to bet again, this time on the Queen. There were only some twenty odd cards to go, yet in the next eight cards played three Queens came up on Roger's losing side.

He knew that it was now or never. If he could get one of his hidden Queens on to the top of the pack without anyone except the Russian seeing him do it all the odds were that he would, after all, pull off his stupid, hair-brained scheme. But he realised that, with the additional excitement which always accompanies the close of a game, all eyes were now upon him; and he could not pause; he had to go on turning up the cards at the same pace and with apparent unconcern.

The next losing card again proved to be a Queen. As he added counters to Vorontzoff's stake, turning it from forty pounds into eighty, his throat was dry and little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead.

He expected the counters to be swept away, but, with mixed feel­ings, saw that the Russian made no move towards them. The accumulated stake being left on gave Roger one more chance to either win it back fairly or to endeavour to palm one of his Queens and carry out his plan. But if he failed to do one or the other, instead of eighty pounds he would go down for one hundred and sixty, and, as five times were the limit for doubling up, the rule would then compel Vorontzoff to remove it, so that all further chance for Roger to recover his losses would be gone for good.

Six pairs of eyes were now riveted upon him so he positively dared not attempt to cheat. Moistening his lips he turned the next card, a King and an Ace, then the next pair, an Ace and a Ten, then the next a Jack and a Queen.

A faint tremor of indrawn breaths went round the table. Roger had lost yet again. He gave the shrug of well-bred indifference that was expected of a good loser, but his palms were moist as he drew from the pool of counters in reserve a further sixteen five-pound octagonal plaques to pay up the Ambassador.

Still the Russian did not take up his winnings, now piled high upon the Queen. Instead he said quietly: "It may be that there is yet another Queen among the remaining cards. If Monsieur Brook has the courage to extend the limit, I will give him a further opportunity to test his fortune."

Georgina's eyes were on Roger, begging him to refuse the offer, but he ignored her glance. If he left things as they were he had already lost far more than he had the means to pay, and the Russian had challenged him to make it double or quits. Since he had let himself in for the nightmare folly, it seemed to him that he might just as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. With a pale smile at Vorontzoff he replied:

"With pleasure, Excellency."

All thought of endeavouring to cheat had now left his mind, but as he made to turn up the next card the moisture of his fingers caused it to stick for a second; instead of falling on to the right-hand pile it hit the table-edge, hovered, and fluttered to the floor. As he stooped to recover it, the thought flashed upon him that fate was giving him a last moment opportunity to carry out his plan. With a quick move­ment he palmed one of the Queens from his inside pocket under cover of his lace ruffle.

With a murmured apology for his clumsiness he passed the few cards left in the pack to Fox, and said: "I pray you reshuffle for me, Sir."

Fox did as he was asked and returned the cards. As Roger took them back he covered them with his lace frilled hand and slid the Queen on top. Since five out of the six people against him had not the least suspicion that he had been cheating, none of them had any reason to suppose that his having dropped one of the cards had been anything but an accident, or gave a second thought to his rather clumsy way of taking them back from Fox. But to anyone who suspected him al­ready the movement must have been transparent.

To Roger, for a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. Every instant he expected the Russian to lurch forward, grab his wrist and accuse him. The revelation that a Queen was on top of the pack would give point to his accusation, but be no proof. Roger would then be entirely within his rights to challenge him. It darted through his mind that he would still be morally liable to his enemy for a sum which he would have very considerable difficulty in raising. But that was beside the point. As he waited, tense and expectant a little glow of triumph warmed his heart; for he felt that he had succeeded, after all, in what a few minutes before had seemed utterly impossible.

Gradually the sudden wave of elation ebbed away. Vorontzoff did nothing; said nothing. The silence seemed to Roger to become unbear­able until Fox said: "Go on, Sir. For what are you waiting?"

With a strained smile Roger picked up the cards. He was within a hair's breadth of turning up the Queen on to the winning pile, when, with a swift movement, Vorontzoff checked him.

Roger's heart leapt. He was no longer thinking of the money, but longing for the accusation which would enable him to issue a challenge. "God be thanked," he thought. "Here it comes, at last."

But the Russian said, almost casually, "Seeing that we are now playing outside the limit, have you any objection, Monsieur, to my giving the cards a final shuffle?"

The blood drained from Roger's face, but he could only bow and reply: "I have no objection whatever, your Excellency."

With the deft fingers of an expert card-player Vorontzoff shuffled the now slender deck and replaced them with a slap in front of Roger.

Picking them up he began grimly to turn them over, knowing that his Queen was now lost somewhere in the centre of the little pack. As he laid them down, first to one side then the other, he paid out or took in on the smaller bets that remained on the table. He came to the last two cards; the first was a Ten, the second a Queen.

He knew then that he had been hoist with his own petard. Instead of accusing him of cheating, Vorontzoff had chosen to await his oppor­tunity, and under the eyes of the whole table, being a really skilful cheat, had, during his swift shuffle, transferred the Queen from the top to the bottom of the pack.

There was nothing that Roger could do about it; nothing at all.

His supply of chips had enabled him to pay out everybody else, leaving him with thirty shillings in excess of his original allocation; and Vorontzoff's own act had cancelled out any moral liability to pay him later the sums of which he had been rooked earlier in the game. But the appalling fact remained that he owed the Russian three hundred and twenty pounds—which was more than he received as a whole year's income.

Roger knew that he deserved the stroke of nemesis that had over­taken him, but that did not make him feel less sick at heart. With commendable savoir faire in the circumstances he bowed to the Ambassador and said: "I congratulate your Excellency. As I have not this sum with me I trust that you will accept my I.O.U."

"With pleasure, Monsieur," Vorontzoff bowed back, smiling sardonically; and, while the other losers settled their smaller losses in cash, Roger went over to a Dutch bureau that stood between two of the windows and wrote out a promissory note for three hundred and twenty pounds.

On the game breaking up Georgina pulled the bell by the fire place. A few minutes later a servant wheeled in a two-tiered wagon with a tea-set on top and dishes of pastries and stuffed briochesbelow. He was an elderly man who walked with a limp, and in strange contrast to the scarlet and gold liveries and powdered hair of the foot­men who had waited at dinner, he wore a simple blue blouse and baize apron.

Those of the guests who had been there before showed no surprise, but Vorontzoff looked so taken aback that Georgina laughed, and said: "I have a strange whim concerning my maids and men, and will not allow them to be kept up till all hours. From nine o'clock they are free to do as they will, and old Barney, here, looks after our require­ments. His days are his own, but at night he occupies a chair in the hall, tends the fires and amuses himself polishing my riding-boots. He taught me to ride as a child and has a marvellous touch with leather."

With a smile she added in English to the old groom. "How go that new pair of boots of mine from Lobb, Barney?"

"Fine, m'Lady," he beamed back. "I need but another week on they an' ye'll be able to see your pretty face in 'em better 'n in any mirror."

As the old man limped away, Vorontzoff said: " 'Tis a most strange innovation to dismiss one's servants after dinner. I fear mine would think me gone mad did I attempt to do so; but it speaks a volume for your graciousness as a mistress."

"I thank you, Sir. And now, while the tea-kettle boils, I would have you give me your opinion of a painting by Canaletto that I bought last year whilst in Italy. 'Tis in the small drawing-room yonder, if you would give me your arm so far."

Roger had been brought up in the tradition that whatever personal emotion or distress a gentleman may be feeling he never shows it in company; so he was making a great effort to appear quite normal as he chatted with the others, and not show by the least sign how seriously his heavy loss had affected him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Georgina and Vorontzoff move off together, and it was clear to him that the twelve hours they had now spent in one another's company had been quite sufficient for them to have got on most excellent terms; but he endeavoured to force both that and his debt into the back of his mind.

The pair were absent for only a few minutes and on her return Georgina infused the fine Bohea. Meanwhile old Barney had wheeled in another trolley carrying an array of wines and spirits, and everyone partook of either a dish of tea or some stronger night-cap.

After ten minutes or so Georgina walked over to one of the windows, and, drawing back the heavy brocaded curtain a little, looked out. It was a clear, starry night, and returning to the group by the fire she said to Roger: "I've a mind to take a breath of air on the terrace before I retire. You know the closet in the hall where I keep my cloak. I pray you get it for me and we will take a turn together."

Wondering what this forboded he accompanied her to the door, fetched her cloak and rejoined her on the top of the terrace-steps. As they walked down them she said at once: "What in the world came over you to-night, Roger, to behave with such consummate folly?"

He shrugged. "Need we go into that, m'dear. I'll admit that I behaved like a fool; but the damage is done, and no good can come of holding an inquest on it."

"But, damn it man, you cannot afford such losses! Your pocket is no match for those of men like Fox, Selwyn and the Ambassador; and common sense should have warned you to eschew playing with them in the first instance."

"I know it; but I little thought then that I would go down so heavily."

" 'Twas your own fault," she countered angrily. "And 'twas not like you, Roger. In all our lives I have never known you to lose your head before. You are no gambler either, normally, and rarely touch a card. What possessed you I cannot think. Again, and again I sought to check your rashness, yet you ignored my signals and deliberately plunged deeper as the game progressed."

" 'Tis true. But I beg you spare me your reproaches. 'Tis punish­ment enough that through an ill-conceived impulse I should have sunk myself for more than I receive from my father in a year."

"And how do you intend to raise this money?"

"I have the best part of two hundred in the funds. For the rest, I shall sell my mare and some of the more extravagant items of my wardrobe that I have bought since my return from France. Then I shall go abroad again, and once more seek to support myself as best I can."

Georgina paused in her walk and laid a hand on his. She felt that she had punished him enough for his strange lapse into reckless folly,

and her voice was warm again as she said: "Poor Roger! Be not down­cast. Such desperate remedies will not be necessary. Thy debt is paid, or very soon will be."

"What mean you?" he exclaimed, swinging round towards her.

She drew a crumpled half sheet of notepaper from her bosom and pressed it into his hand. "Here is your I.O.U. Destroy it, m'dear; and think no more of your three-hour fit of madness."

"How—how did you get this?" Roger stammered, with a sudden feeling of apprehension.

Georgina laughed. "Why, I asked Vorontzoff for it, of course; while I was showing him the Canaletto. He gave it to me in exchange for the privilege of carrying my candle when we go up, and lighting me to bed."

CHAPTER IV

A NIGHT IN A LIFE-TIME

ROGER was three-quarters of a head taller than Georgina and for a moment he stood staring down into her upturned face, a prey to the most wildly conflicting emotions. After his almost suicidal feelings of the past half-hour, the thought that he would not, after all, have to part with his small nest-egg and most of his treasured possessions in order to raise three hundred and twenty pounds, came as an immense relief. Also he knew that he should be deeply grateful to Georgina, and that she was standing there expecting him to burble out his heartfelt thanks for having saved him from the results of his folly.

Yet he was not grateful to her. Or, at least, while he was far from lacking in appreciation of the swiftness with which she had come to his rescue, he was also bitterly resentful of the means she had adopted to that end. He guessed that, as so often was the case with her, she must have acted on a generous impulse; but, in so doing, had pre­cipitated the very situation which, even to the point of reckless folly, he had been seeking to postpone until after their parting.

Striving to control the emotion in his voice, he said:

" 'Twas mightily good of you, Georgina; but, by taking my debt over in this fashion you have unwittingly put a humiliation upon me that I find it monstrous hard to bear."

"Stuff and nonsense," she replied sharply. "I simply told his Excellency that since 'tis our custom to let the servants seek their beds at a reasonable hour we have a row of candles left for us in the hall, and that when you are staying here 'tis your privilege, as my oldest friend, to light me to my room. He rose to the bait like a trout at a mayfly, and hazarded that if you would sell him that privilege for to-night he would gladly accept it in cancellation of your debt; where­upon I closed the deal. What, pray, do you find humiliating in that?"

"I find it humiliating that you should have to barter your favours to pay my debts."

"I promised him no favours." "By inference you certainly did."

She shrugged. "That I'll admit; but they will be only what I choose to give."

"Think you so? Once you present that Russian with a fair field to set about you, I'd give little for your chances of receiving quarter."

"Oh, Roger, why must you dramatise the matter so? You are acting like a romantic schoolboy and talking to me as if I were a girl in her first season. I'll pay your debt in my own fashion, but there will be no sordidness about the transaction, as you suggest."

"Yet you would not have offered him an opening so soon; had it not been for my predicament."

"Perhaps not; but since you press the point, your own conduct has brought matters to a head more speedily than I expected."

"If you admit that, 'tis as good as admitting that you are selling yourself to pay my debt, and therein lies my humiliation."

Georgina drew herself up. "How dare you suggest that I would sell myself for a paltry three hundred pounds!"

" 'Tis not the money but the principle of the thing. You know as well as I that you have made an unspoken bargain with the man and are by nature too honest to go back upon it."

"I tell you that I have made no bargain! The Russian has taken a gamble on my good-will, no more. He may count himself lucky if I allow him to kiss me good-night."

Roger's laugh rang with angry scorn. "Is it likely that he will be content with that?"

"I do not know, and I do not care," Georgina flared. "I told you this morning that what I had seen of him in London had predisposed me in his favour. On closer acquaintance I find him both intelligent and amusing. Therefore I pray you disabuse yourself of this notion that anything I may choose to do will be done on account of your own folly. Both political interest and my own inclination conspire in urging me to favour his suit. In the circumstances, it seemed to me that if by accelerating matters a little I could also cancel out this wretched debt of yours, I should be doing you a service. Now, Sir, I pray you take me within doors again."

Roger bowed stiffly. "Since those are your sentiments, Madam, no more remains to be said." Then he offered her his arm, and in stony silence escorted her back to the drawing-room.

It was now close on midnight, and within a few moments of their reappearance the company declared for bed. Going out into the hall they lit their respective candles, and having mounted the broad staircase in a body, separated on the landing with a chorus of "good nights."

Georgina and Vorontzoff turned to the right. Roger, following a few paces behind, saw them pass the door of her bedroom and enter the next one to it, which led* into her boudoir. As he passed it the door closed behind them. Biting his lip, he ^walked on down the corridor to the third door in the row, that of Sir Humphrey Etheredge's room, which he was occupying; and, going in slammed it behind him with a loud bang.

In the boudoir Vorontzoff had just completed the lighting of a three-branched candelabra that stood on an occasional table at the head of the golden day-bed. As the slam reverberated through the room he shot a quick look at the communicating door, then smiled at Georgina. " 'Twas young Mr. Brook behind us just now, was it not? He seems to have sought his bed in something of a temper."

She made a little face. "Poor fellow! He sets considerable store on his privilege of lighting me to bed and was most loath to surrender it, even for the cancellation of his debt."

"That I can well understand, Madame. And lest it trouble him so much as to cause him to walk in his sleep we will take due precaution that he should not disturb you."

As he spoke the Russian took three swift steps towards the com­municating door and shot its bolt; then he turned to face her again and gave her a long steady look.

He was not as tall as Roger but broader in the shoulders, and all his movements denoted a quick, determined mind. His flatfish face was saved from ugliness by its strength, and the upward slope of his dark eyebrows at their outer ends gave him a faint resemblance to a satyr.

Georgina, faintly smiling, returned his look. She was intensely curious to know what line he would take with her. In such a situation the usual technique of the day was. for the gallant to pour out a stream of wildly exaggerated compliments, beseech the f au­to take pity on him, and falling on his knees before her, vow that he would commit suicide unless she salved the sweet but deadly wound that Cupid's arrow had made in his heart. If the lady actively dis­liked him, or wished to prolong his torment, she firmly rejected all his pleas. Otherwise she pretended an exaggerated virtue and alarm, gradually appeared to become affected by her lover's emotion and finally, apparently quite distraught, half-fainting and with languorous sighs, succumbed to his attack.

Having been the object of a score of such attempts during the past five years Georgina had come to find them a little boring, and the Russian's only real attraction for her lay in the fact that she believed his love-making would prove quite different from anything that she had so far experienced.

As their long look broke, he picked up the candle again and moved with resolute steps towards her bedroom.

"Monsieur!" she exclaimed. "Wither are you going?"

"Why, to light the candles you will need for your night-toilette, Madame," he replied airily. "Surely you do not think that I am a man who would leave anything half done. I pray you come with me and show me which lights you will require."

She wondered if he meant to pounce upon her immediately he had got her inside, and she was by no means prepared to let him do so as yet. But the casualness of his tone suggested that he intended no more than to complete his service with the candle; so, a little uncertainly she followed him through the door. Then, keeping well away from him, she said: "If you will light the candles on my dressing-table and the night-light beside my bed, those will serve."

He complied without giving her a glance, set down the candle he was carrying next to the night-light on the far side of the big four-poster, and, stepping into the centre of the room looked round it with the eye of a connoisseur.

" 'Tis a lovely apartment," he declared, "and well-suited to be Hymen's playground for the loveliest lady in all England."

"Fie, Monsieur!" she rebuked him. "I am not used to hear such outspoken thoughts from a new acquaintance."

"Indeed!" His eyebrows lifted in faint mockery. "Then English­men must be even poorer champions in the lists of love than they are reputed. In my country even acquaintanceship is accounted redundant when two pairs of eyes have met and kindled the Divine spark."

"Then it must be a plaguey dangerous place for the poor females," Georgina smiled. "But come, Monsieur, let us return to my boudoir and you shall tell me something of your country before I send you to your rest."

She had already turned to go through the doorway. Suddenly he took two swift strides forward and seized her from behind. One of his arms shot round her waist and caught her to him, the other encircled her breast with the hand raised to grasp her chin. Catching it firmly between his fingers and thumb, he jerked round her head and, thrust­ing his own face over her shoulder he kissed her full upon the mouth.

For a moment she let him have his way, then she made a violent effort to free herself; but his grip held her like a vice, and he kept his mouth pressed against hers until they were both breathless.

At last he jerked back his head, smiled down into her eyes, and panted: "A demonstration of how a Russian can love is better than any tales I could tell." Then, shifting his grip, he picked her up, carried her across the room and threw her down upon the bed.

As she made no attempt to cry out, or even to protest, he felt that his triumph was assured; but he had reckoned without Georgina's agility and resource. Within a second of his having thrown her face upward on the bed she had jerked herself over, squirmed off it and stood facing him on its far side.

"Enough of this!" she panted. "Your Excellency is much mistaken if you think that I am to be taken so."

He laughed, his dark eyes boring into hers, his white teeth flashing. "If you prefer the French style to the Russian, Madame, you have but to say so. I am accounted a tolerably good lady's maid and would be charmed to assist at your unrobing. I ask only that you should spare me the pretended vapourings, faints and tears, which most English ladies seem to regard as an essential accompaniment to their surrender."

"I will spare you both that and all other exertions," Georgina said regally. "The favours you have received elsewhere have led you to count your chickens before they are hatched on this occasion. 'Tis my pleasure that you should now leave my room."

"Nay. That is too much to ask," he shot back. "You are a woman in a million, and I have set my heart upon you. I mean you no dis­respect when I say that you have long lived apart from your husband and taken other lovers in his place. And you openly encouraged me to hope. Choose for yourself, then, if we are to play Cupid's game with the leisurely refinement of the French, or if you would have me leap this bed and catch you as I can."

Georgina's heart was hammering in her breast. The novelty of the Russian's forthright love-making had already surpassed her expecta­tions. She found it wildly exciting; and now the time had clearly come when she must either give in to him or take some drastic action to cut matters short.

The thought of Roger crossed her mind. She still felt that he had behaved boorishly in seeking to put a restraint upon her contrary to their original pact; yet she knew that she had hurt his pride by break­ing away from him so abruptly; and had wanted to be able to salve it the following morning by telling him that she had dismissed Voront­zoff after letting him take only a couple of kisses.

Suddenly she decided that she had had enough excitement for one night, and that the present game would lose nothing from keeping; so she took refuge in a clever lie.

"Monsieur," she said. "I have ordered you to leave my room. I now beg you to do so in order to avoid a most unseemly incident. My father and I are much attached and 'tis his invariable custom to come in and wish me goodnight after I have retired. He will be here at any moment now and I should be mightily shamed if he found you with me."

Vorontzoff had no means of telling if she was speaking the truth, yet he could not decently refuse such a request. It seemed that she had completely foiled him, but after thinking furiously for a moment, he said: "So be it, Madame. At what hour shall I return?"

"I—I fail to understand ..." she faltered.

" 'Tis quite simple," he said with sudden gravity. "While we were admiring your Canaletto we made an unspoken bargain. Under pretext of my lighting you to your room you invited me here. Men and women such as you and I do not make assignations for such an hour and place to tell one another nursery-rhymes. Besides: you cannot have so soon forgotten the clothes that you are wearing."

Georgina gave a swift glance down at her embroidered bodice and short skirts. "Why no!" she said, with a puzzled frown. " 'Tis the Russian peasant costume, you gave me. But, what of it?"

''Surely, Madame, you realised that it is a wedding-dress; and that I should naturally take your having donned it so promptly as a clear sign that you were willing to grant me a husband's place to-night."

She shook her head. "I donned it in your honour, Monsieur, but with no thought that the garment had any special significance."

"Then let that pass," he shrugged. "There still remains our un­spoken bargain."

"Do you dare to infer that I am to be bought for three hundred pounds," she cried hotly.

"Nay," he protested. "You are unfair. The matter hinged upon your desire to save that young man from an embarrassment. The money itself is a mere bagatelle, and I crave permission to place at your feet jewels of ten times that value. But of more worth still are the services that I can render you. I am no fool, Madame, and I know both your love of power and the value that Mr. Fox sets upon the Russian interest. If you will honour the inference upon which you brought me here, and the significance of the dress you wear to-night, I will place all my influence unreservedly at your disposal to-morrow."

Georgina hesitated. She had believed that while this hard-headed diplomat might prove a novel and amusing lover, she would probably find it extremely difficult to sway him politically; yet he was now offering her that power to exercise a secret influence on great events which was her most cherished ambition.

"I must think," she murmured. "Give me a little time, I beg."

"Madame! You are playing with me!" His voice held a sudden note of anger. "We Russians are hot accustomed to such finesse, and when we want a thing we want it badly. You are old enough to know your mind on such a matter. Have done with these delays and give me your answer."

She gave him a half smile and pleaded: "To-morrow. Surely, you can wait till to-morrow for it."

While they had been talking he had imperceptibly edged round the corner of the bed. Suddenly he moved again and, with one bound was on its far side; but he made no attempt to seize her. Falling on his knees he reached up, and grasping her hands he began to smother them with kisses, as he cried.

"To-morrow! Why to-morrow when to-night can be ours! Oh, my beautiful Georgina, I beg you to take pity on me. I am no pretty, strutting youth, but a strong man worthy of your love. All these winter months since I first saw you in Devonshire House I have adored you with the adoration that we Russians reserve for the Saints. I cannot live unless you will grant me what I ask. I am your slave to do with as you will, but let me return in half an hour to renew my worship at the loveliest of shrines. Let me come back I implore—I entreat you."

Georgina's heart was now beating fast again. Had she been in any state to think clearly she would have realised that the Russian's love-making was no more than a reversal of the usual procedure; yet his having attacked her first and reserved his impassioned pleas for later had proved more effective, and her brain was in a whirl. As she bent above him she felt all the thrill of having, after all, reduced this strong, virile representative of a great nation to a suppliant at her feet, and emotion now combined with interest to incline her to be merciful.

"What I would not do for jewels I might do from kindness," she whispered. "For your passion moves me much. Yet I will make no promises."

He suddenly released her hands and stood up to renew his anguished pleading. "Madame, how can you have the heart to torment me further? Be plain with me or I shall be forced to think you the hardest-hearted of coquettes."

"Nay, I will not be rushed into yielding on a wave of emotion," she declared with sudden firmness. "You must grant me, Monsieur, the next half hour to make up my mind while I undress. You may return then if you wish to put out the lights and learn my decision."

His flushed face broke into a smile and, stepping back, he made her a low bow. "With that, Madame, I rest content. Unless your heart is made of stone, April the first will now prove to be the happiest dawn that I have ever known."

Her nerves were still taut, and as he turned away, she gave a little semi-hysterical laugh. " 'Twould be unwise to count on anything on such a date; for 'tis All Fools' Day."

Evidently he guessed that she had made the silly joke in an effort to recover her normal poise, since he did not reply but crossed the boudoir without even a glance over his shoulder; and a moment later she heard the door click as he let himself out into the corridor.

With a breathless sigh she sat down at her dressing-table and began to unpin the golden headdress. Standing up again she stripped off the gay wedding costume and slipped on her filmy night robe; then she settled herself before her mirror once more.

For a moment she remained quite still, regarding the lovely image of herself. She was still in the first flush of her beauty; not even the suggestion of a wrinkle marred her skin, and with her abounding health, she saw no reason why they should do so for many years to come. Slowly she gave her face the few touches that it needed with the hare's foot and the powder-puff; then she combed through her lustrous black hair, and very conscious that this was no night to do it up in curl­papers, re-arranged it with a blue satin bow to gather her curls in a cluster at the back of her neck.

Dousing the candles on the dressing-table, she walked through to the boudoir and put the lights out there. On her way back she left the door ajar, then removed the big copper warming pan from the bed and wriggled down into its soft, warm depths.

The room was lit now only by the glow of the dying fire and the fat, shaded night-light beside the bed.

Georgina turned on her back and stretched luxuriously, then she relaxed and lay staring up at the draped canopy of the great four-poster.

Her thoughts were still a little chaotic. She was somehow more certain than ever now that she had never really intended to commit herself to-night, and she realised that it was only Roger's stupidity at the card-table that had led her into doing so. Yet she could not find it in her heart to blame him. Such a loss of his normally well-balanced head could only have been caused by some secret disturbance that was going on inside it, and for that there could be only one explanation— her own jilting of him without adequate preparation.

It occurred to her now that she ought to have sent him away a few days ago and said nothing of Vorontzoff's projected visit. He would have gone quite cheerfully then, knowing well enough that in due course she would take another lover, yet still retaining his romantic feelings for her. It grieved her now to think that she had hurt and offended him quite unnecessarily.

This was not the first time that she had had to reproach herself with the results of her besetting sin, which was demanding too much of life. That was the trouble; she always wanted to eat her cake and keep it too. In her heart of hearts she had known perfectly well that Roger would take the Russian's overtures to her badly, yet she had not been sufficiently strong-minded either to send him away or refuse Fox's request that she should invite the Ambassador down for this week-end. She knew too that the reason for that was not far to seek. In spite of the occasional tiffs that had crept into her intimacy with Roger, she was still physically in love with him and wanted him to stay on at Stillwaters with her through the spring.

She was already wishing that it was he who would be corning to her in a few moments now. She loved to gaze her fill into those deep blue eyes and feel his strong arms hold her close. He was such a mar­vellous lover too, because he had such a happy nature. When roused his passion matched her own, but at times he could be very gentle, and he teased her deliciously. She had never known another man who could bring such an element of merriment to his love-making.

But in a fit of temper she had forbidden Roger her room, and the evening's events had made it quite certain that he would not risk a fresh humiliation by ignoring her prohibition. By now he was either asleep or tossing restlessly in his bed, a prey to bitter, angry thoughts about her. For a moment she thought of getting up and going in to him, but she dismissed the idea almost as soon as it arose. To do so now might result in a most appalling scene culminating in a duel. It was too late now to undo the web of her own spinning in which she had entangled herself. She must stop thinking about Roger and think about the strange, dark, violent man who was coming to her instead.

She had forced him to give her half an hour's respite and insisted that her mind was not yet made up; but she knew full well that on his return that would count for nothing. There was no escape now from the grasp of those strong, square-fingered hands, and the avid mouth that had crushed itself against hers so fiercely. He was considerably older than any lover that she had previously taken but she felt certain that he did not lack virility. Perhaps, just as she had first thought, his very strangeness would prove terribly exciting. She had not relished his hot flat face being pressed against her own, yet she had given way before to men who had attracted her less, in order to satisfy her curiosity. In any case she had made her bed and must now lie upon it. She wondered then how long he would remain with her, and with a sink­ing heart recalled his mentioning the dawn. In vain she sought to fight off the conviction that she would hate him before the morning.

A soft footfall caught her ear, followed by the gentle closing of a door. She gave a start, then quickly shut her eyes and stilled her breath­ing as though she had fallen asleep. It was a last poor little effort at defence on the slender chance that, finding her so, he would grant her a reprieve and refrain from waking her, Yet she knew all the time that it was childish to think for an instant that such a scruple would induce him to forego his victory.

The footsteps drew nearer. They crossed the soft carpet and halted beside the bed. For a moment that seemed to her of almost unendur­able length nothing happened. She could hear her heart thumping wildly; a lump was rising in her throat. She felt that unless the tension ended in another instant she would scream.

Then a quiet voice said: " 'Tis a pleasant change to find you without your hair done up in curl papers."

"Roger!" She started up on her elbow; her eyes wide, the blood draining from her face, as she gasped. "What brings you here?"

"To see that you were well, happy, and to wish you a good night," he replied lightly.

"But I forbade you to come!"

"As a lover, perhaps; but you have not withdrawn from me the privilege of a brother."

" ‘Tis no time for splitting straws," she said in a fierce whisper. "You.must go—go instantly."

"Why this perturbation?" he smiled. "And your prodigious eagerness to be rid of me?"

"Because—because Vorontzoff's coming back, and will be here at any moment. If he finds you here..." her voice trailed away on a note of panic.

"And what if he did?"

"Oh, are you mad?" She sat up and wrung her hands. "Spare me, I beg, a brawl in my own room! Or worse! He may challenge you to a duel in which one of you might be killed."

"Nothing would please me better than the chance to spit him like the conceited turkey-cock he is. It made my gall rise till it near choked me to see the way in which he treated you as if already you were his, this evening."

"Oh, Roger, please!" she begged. "I have been at fault, I know. I did not originally intend to bring matters to a head this week-end. I swear it! If I have hurt you 'tis I who am paying for it now. I would with all my heart that I could stop his corning. But 'tis too late. Add not to my distress by creating some dreadful scene that may end in tragedy."

"So you would stop his coming if you could?"

"Yes, yes. But that is of little moment. 'Twill be no more than un mauvais quart d'heure; then I'll get rid of him. What matters is that he should not find you here. Leave me, I implore you!"

He smiled down at her. "Then it seems that I have been able to render you a service. You may set your mind at rest m'dear, regarding this meeting that you now find distasteful. Count Vorontzoff will not be returning to you to-night."

"Roger!" she cried, starting forward in fresh panic. "What have you done?"

"I left him but five minutes back; having delivered a message pur­porting to come from you." "From me?"

"Yes. I had the door of my room open a crack and saw him leave your boudoir after a bare ten minutes. 'Twas a sack of peas to a million pounds that he would not count so short a conversation adequate payment for my I.O.U.; and by the smile upon his conceited face I guessed that you must have given him permission to return. So I went , to him and paid my debt. Then I told him that, since you were no longer under an obligation to him, you had exercised a lady's privilege of changing her mind, and had desired me to inform him that you would dispense with his attendance."

"You paid your debt! But how?"

"I went first to Droopy; who gave me a draft on sight at Coutts for the money. The Russian could not refuse to accept it."

"But—but your debt was not the only thing which caused me to commit myself," she stammered. "I could easily have found three hundred for you next week. I had made a bargain with him to give Charles Fox his political support. I do confess it. Oh, Roger, he may yet come back on that account."

"Nay, he will not. I guessed that you would do that, and 'tis for me now to confess that I took drastic measures to ensure against it. When I handed him the draft I drew his attention to the date."

"What!" Georgina gasped. "And 'tis April the first."

"You have it, sweet!" Roger began to titter. "I told him that you and I bad been leading him on the whole evening, and that we had made of him our this year's first April Fool."

"Roger, you didn't!" Suddenly her sense of humour got the better of her,, and throwing up her hands she began to rock with laughter.

For over a minute they chortled with childish glee. Then, as she wiped the fears from her eyes, she exclaimed:

"Oh, darling, you'll be the death of me. But how did the poor man take it?"

"Badly, I fear," Roger admitted. "He went as white as a sheet, and I hoped that he would call me out. But he refrained, and merely remarked sarcastically that, in time, no doubt, he would learn how to adapt himself to our English sense of humour."

"You were right to term it a drastic measure," Georgina said more soberly. " 'Tis an injury that he will not forget, and I'll swear to it that he has a vengeful nature. Henceforth we must beware of him and take all measures possible to guard against his enmity."

Roger shrugged. "I can take good care of myself, and you have no cause to worry. To-morrow you can be huffy with him and avoid a tete-a-tete. On Monday morning, before he leaves, give him an opening for an explanation. Ask him why he failed to return here to-night, and when he tells you be wide-eyed with pretended ignorance. Throw the whole thing on me, and vow that I alone was the cause of this contretemps. 'Tis no departure from the truth. Then you can give him an assignation for later in London, or not, just as you please!"

"That will not serve," she shook her head. "To-night, as so often is the case, our minds must have been en rapport,or twas by the merest fluke. But the very last remark I made to him before he left this room was to the effect that it being after midnight, we were in All Fools' Day. He'll not have forgotten that, and nothing will ever persuade him now that I was not a party to your plot."

"It seems that I have caused you to lose him for good, then. For that I ask your pardon; and I hope that it will give you no serious regret."

"Nay. I fear that poor Charles Fox will be gravely disappointed; but he knew to begin with that he could count on me only if I found that my inclinations marched with his interests. As for myself, you were right in contending that I might scratch a Russian and find a Tartar. Russian women may like such violent handling by their lovers, but I find that I have a preference for quieter ways. I am not easily scared, but, I'll confess now, that I was more than a little frightened by the thought of his coming back to me to-night."

"God be thanked, then, that it occurred to me to go to Droopy."

Georgina suddenly sat forward from her pillows. "Roger! I had for­gotten! By doing so you have made yourself liable for this wretched debt again."

" 'Tis true," he answered, with a rueful smile. "But I shall repay Droopy just as I had intended to pay the Russian. I can still collect my money from the funds, and sell my mare and other things."

A look of great tenderness came over her face, as she said: "Oh, Roger, darling! You make me feel monstrous mean in having treated you so. I have but this moment realised that, though we have been lovers for five long months, you have given a whole year's income to spend another night with me. Never in my life have I been paid so great a compliment, and never shall again."

His blue eyes twinkled. "Am I then restored to favour, and about to spend the night with you?"

"How can you ask?" Her glowing smile was in itself an embrace".

"You have been such a wicked baggage that I'm not sure I want to," he teased her.

"BeastI" she cried. "When I have you here I'll pay you out for that."

"I have not decided yet if I've a mind to play proxy to your earlier visitor."

"Enough, Sir! Thou knowest full well that thou art the only man that I have ever truly loved, or ever shall. Come to my arms this instant."

Slowly he took off the blue silk robe that he was wearing and laid it over a chair. For a moment he bent above her, then her soft arms closed round his neck. He was twenty and she was twenty-one. Both of them could look forward to ten thousand to-morrows without a care, and this night was theirs.

The hours sped all too swiftly. It was as though the healing of this, their first serious difference in all their lives, had knit them together more closely than ever before. They dozed a little now and then, his arm about her shoulders, her dark head pillowed on his chest; . but in the main, between caresses, they talked and whispered a thousand absurdities while the world around them slept.

At last he roused from a timeless interval of semi-conscious bliss, and murmured: " 'Tis time for me to leave you, sweet, to get a few hours sleep. The dawn is on us. Look, the light is now quite strong where it creeps in between the curtains."

"Nay, stay and love me yet a while," she whispered drowsily. "I could never have enough of you."

"That ill consorts with your opinion of yesterday," he rallied her.

She got up on one elbow, and leaned across him, smiling down into his face. "I must have been a little crazy then, and we were both quite so last night. Our kisses have cured our affliction since, and we are sane again. You'll not leave here on Monday, as you threatened; will you, Roger?"

He was silent for a moment, then he said: "I had no thought of doing so until our discussion on ourselves arose. But your contention then, that if we had the strength of mind to part while our passion was still unblunted, we might later cheat the Gods into giving us a second honeymoon, impressed me mightily."

" 'Twas sound reasoning I'll admit. But this past night has given our passion a new lease of life; so there is now no point in our pre­cipitating the parting. Stay with me these next two months at least; for Stillwaters is a veritable lovers' paradise in the spring."

"Hark!" he said suddenly; and in the stillness of the early morning they both caught the faint clatter of a horse's hoofs on stone.

"Who would be going out riding at this early hour?" he asked, with a puzzled frown.

She shrugged. "I know not, neither do I care. One of the grooms most probably, taking a horse to exercise."

"Nay. 'Tis Sunday, and no good groom would gallop a horse across the flagstones of the yard."

"What boots it, anyway?" She gave him an impatient shake. "Attend to me, Sir; and tell me if you will stay and love me through the spring."

"Aye," he smiled. "Since 'tis your wish, dear witch, I will. None but the Gods can tell what may have befallen us by this time next year. So let us suck our golden orange till 'tis dry. We'll still have the rind, and in that lies the essential essence of the fruit; its quality of greatest value, like our sweet companionship."

Georgina gave him a long kiss, and murmured: "Well said, dear love. I am now content; and when thou hast left my side I shall fall asleep only to enjoy sweet dreams of thee."

"Then I will leave thee now to my most fortunate dream image."

As he made to rise she pushed him back, on a sudden thought occurring to her. "That horse. Think you it could have been Vorontzoff leaving for London in a dudgeon?"

Roger shook his head. "Nay. He came in a coach with outriders. He would not set out to return alone."

"I would to God it was," she sighed. "How I'll face him when we next meet, I cannot think."

"Then think not of it, angel. I'll stick by your side throughout the day;, so that he has no chance to corner you alone."

"The sight of you beside me will infuriate him the more. After your visit to him last night 'tis a hundred to one that he guessed you to be my lover."

"Were the odds a thousand to one I would not take them," Roger laughed. "I would wager any money that he slipped along the corridor after I left him to make certain that you were not alone. And discretion is not your major virtue, my pet. A score of times I have begged you to lower your voice when we are in here together, but you persistently ignore my counsel; so he is bound to have heard us.

"Oh, drat the man! the thought of him has now robbed me of all wish to sleep. Keep me company a while longer, dear one. Nibble my ear for a little, you know how I love that."

"Thou art a veritable child," he smiled. "Turn over, then; and I'll indulge thee."

For a few moments they lay quietly side by side while he gently teased the lobe of her right ear, then she said with a happy sigh: "Oh, darling, 'tis the most lovely feeling; and I adore thee so. Thou hast but one single shortcoming."

Stopping, he raised his head and asked in mock indignation."And what may that be, pray?"

She giggled. "That thou hast not two mouths with which to nibble both my ears at the same time."

It was at that instant both of them caught the sound of heavy footsteps pounding along the corridor at a run. Jerking apart they sat up in bed. Georgina snatched at her nightdress. Roger stretched out a hand in an endeavour to reach his gown.

The crashing footfalls came to an abrupt halt outside the door. Suddenly it was thrown open, and a tall figure burst into the room.

The intruder paused just inside the doorway. He was a man of about thirty; fair-haired, red-faced, broad-shouldered. He was booted and spurred and his clothes were covered with dust. In his right hand he held a heavy riding crop that trailed a long lash; in his left a handker­chief with which he began to mop his perspiring face.

Roger had never seen him before, but he guessed instantly that this must be Georgina's husband.

Confirming his thought came her swift cry:' "Humphrey! What brings you here? How dare you invade my privacy in this barbarous fashion!"

Slamming the door behind him Sir Humphrey Etheredge strode forward to the foot of the bed. "And you, Madam!" he bellowed like an angry bull. "How dare you commit your whoredoms in my house?"

" 'Tis not your house," she retorted, her black eyes flashing. "Stillwaters is mine for life under our marriage contract."

"I care not!" he roared. "I told you when last we met in London that you must be more circumspect in your affairs. I warned you that I would no longer tolerate being made an open mock of. I'll not sub­mit to being pointed at as a figure of fun to pleasure you or any other harlot!"

Georgina had covered herself by jerking the bedclothes up to her chin. Roger had seized the chance while they were storming at one another to slip out of bed and pull on his robe. Now, stepping for­ward, he said firmly:

"Sir Humphrey. My name is Roger Brook. I am prepared to give you full satisfaction whenever it may suit you. Let us curtail this undignified scene and behave like gentlemen. Be good enough to leave the room with me and give me the names of your seconds."

The irate husband swung upon him. "My quarrel is not with you, Sir! That Frenchman, whoever he may be, said in the note he sent to Goodwood that if I immediately took horse and got here by dawn I should find a young cockscomb warming my wife's bed for me. But whether 'twas yourself or another I do not give a damn. 'Tis her I have ridden twenty-five miles to catch. And now I've caught her I intend to give her a damn good flogging, for 'tis the only language she will understand."

As he ceased his tirade he stepped swiftly round the side of the bed and, raising his whip, struck at Georgina.

Roger threw himself across the bed in an effort to shield her and grabbed at the lash as it descended. Missing her face by an inch it caught him across the back of his left hand, but he failed to grasp it. Realising the futility of such half-measures he slid off the bed and squared up to Sir Humphrey.

Ignoring him, the purple-faced Baronet struck at Georgina a

second time. She had stretched out her hand to snatch up a heavy cut-glass scent bottle that stood on her bedside table. Just as she grasped it the lash came down again, cutting her across the neck and down the upper part of her naked back.

Out of the corner of his eye Roger saw the lash fall, and heard her give a swift whimper. Head down, fists clenched and half-mad with rage he sailed into Sir Humphrey, striking out with all his force. His right caught the Baronet a terrific blow just below the heart. At the same instant Georgina flung the scent-bottle and it caught her husband on the temple. He gave a grunt, lurched, and fell to the floor.

For a moment he lay silent and they stared at him in horror; then he began to groan. Georgina jumped out of bed and made to kneel down beside him; but Roger thrust her aside.

"Leave this to me," he muttered. "And in heaven's name get some clothes on before the commotion we have raised brings the household upon us."

As she hurried into her nightdress and pulled a chamber-robe over it, he swiftly loosed Sir Humphrey's cravat to ease his breathing. The Baronet continued to groan and rolled his head painfully from side to side a little; but he showed no signs of returning consciousness.

Georgina ran to her washstand, picked up a jug of cold water and, running back with it, sluiced its contents over his head and shoulders.

Roger had already examined the side of the injured man's head where the scent-bottle had struck it. There was only a small cut from which a few drops of blood were oozing; but the scent had sprayed all over him and the whole room now reeked of the heady perfume.

Kneeling down opposite Roger, Georgina wiped the few drops of blood from her husband's head with a handkerchief. She had hardly done so when the movements of his neck ceased, his mouth fell open, and a horrible rattling noise began to issue from his throat.

It continued for a full minute while they knelt there petrified. Suddenly it ceased. Both of them looked up at the same moment and their terrified glances met across the body.

CHAPTER v

A BID FOR LIFE

ROGER was kneeling on the left side of the corpse; Georgina on its right. Neither of them moved. White-faced and stunned they continued to stare at one another across it.

Suddenly Georgina broke the silence in a frightened whisper.

"Roger—in the crystal yesterday! Your—your heavy loss at cards!"

He nodded. "And for you—the treachery through a letter writ in a foreign hand!"

Again there flashed into both their minds the third picture she had conjured up from the depths of the water-filled goblet; the court­room scene—the judge in his red robe—the gallows tree.

Georgina's mouth opened wide to give forth a terrified scream. At the sight something clicked in Roger's brain. From a scared youngster with a mind numbed by shock and fright, he became in an instant a clear-headed man of action. Reaching out he slapped her smartly across the face.

Her scream was cut short in her throat. She blinked her eyes and tears welled up into them; but her nerves steadied as she felt Roger's hand grasp hers and heard him speaking in a swift low voice.

"If we would save our necks 'tis imperative that you should quell your hysteria, and disregard that ugly portent. To count it a glimpse of a future definitely ordained is to admit defeat and invite conviction. 'Twould be as sensible to surrender ourselves to the sheriff's officers within the hour, and confess to murder. If God grants us a little time we may yet concoct a story; and save ourselves by con­vincing the authorities that he died by an accident."

As she did not reply, he added urgently: "Speak, Georgina; speak! Say you understand me!"

She nodded dumbly, then threw an anxious glance over her shoulder towards the door, and muttered, "After the noise he made 'tis a wonder that the household is not already upon us."

Roger too, had feared that the dead man's shouting would have brought guests and servants running; but as the early morning quiet of the house remained unbroken he said softly: "I've a feeling now that God has granted us a respite. The walls of the house are thick and the rooms on either side of this unoccupied. Across the corridor lie only your clothes-closets; and. the servants would not yet be moving about this part of the house. Our worst danger is that old Barney may have seen him come upstairs, and followed. He may be listening outside the door, there."

Georgina shook her head. "Even were that so, he would allow him­self to be cut in pieces rather than say aught hurtful to me. But, 'tis most unlikely. At this hour he will be tending to the fires."

As her glance fell again upon her husband's body, fresh tears started to her eyes, and she exclaimed: "Oh, poor Humphrey! To think that he was once a fine handsome fellow; see the ruin he has made of himself these past few years. And worse! To meet so sudden and terrible an end all through my wickedness."

"Cease talking nonsense!" said Roger, with sudden brutality. He knew that at all costs he must prevent her from breaking down, and went on ruthlessly. " 'Twas no fault of yours that excessive drink first coarsened all his appetites, then robbed him of the power to enjoy the wives of stable-hands, and the like, that he took for his mistresses. He condoned your infidelities and laughed at them until recent months, when the liquor began to affect his brain. His behaviour but five minutes since was that of a lunatic, and he is better dead. I've no regrets at having rid you of him."

"Thou did'st not do so, Roger. 'Twas the scent-bottle I flung catching him on the temple that killed him."

"Nay, 'twas my blow upon his heart. Had I not been half-crazed myself from seeing him strike you I should have remembered the type of life he led, and had the sense to pull my punch."

"You seek to take the blame upon yourself. 'Tis like your chivalry; but, whatever the rights of it, I'll not allow you to say that the blow upon his head was also yours. I'd sooner be driven to Tyburn in a cart."

"My brave Georgina," he squeezed her hand as they stood up. "Maintain that spirit for an hour or two and we will cheat the gallows yet. But all will depend on the first account given as to how he met his death. No jury could fail to be prejudiced against you from the out­set if 'tis known that your husband came upon you in flagrante delicto. Therefore I must leave the revealing of his death to you. 'Twill be your worst ordeal. But once 'tis over I shall be by your side again; and, should things go ill, nothing you can say will stop me from coming forward to reveal that 'twas my blow that caused him to be seized with an apoplexy. Now, thinkest thou that thy courage is equal to telling convincingly the story we will invent?"

"Aye!" she agreed, passing her tongue over her dry lips. "I'll not fail thee in a gamble that may mean the saving of both our lives. And thou art right that I must play this first scene of it out alone. Any other course would spell disaster. But what story shall I tell? How account for his unheralded arrival here at such a godless hour; his sudden attack, and the cut upon his head?"

"The last is simple, you can say that as he fell he struck his head on the corner post of the bed. As for his stroke, that might have been brought on from his riding twenty-five miles at topmost speed. Such an arduous feat demands considerable fitness. 'Twould prove a far greater strain than riding in a single race or the hunting to which he is accustomed, for in a day out there are always frequent checks and pauses.

"He raved about having ridden twenty-five miles, but how can you be certain that he did so at topmost speed? If he left Goodwood after dinner, or even after midnight, 'twould have been mere hacking to reach here by dawn."

"Damme! Do you not realise whom we have to thank for bringing us to this evil pass?"

"Humphrey spoke of a note from some Frenchman, with whom he did not appear to be acquainted. But what Frenchman has the ill-will to denounce me, or could possibly know. . . ."

" 'Twas not a Frenchman, but a man who habitually uses French. Vorontzoff, and no other. 'Tis thus he has avenged himself on us for our treatment of him last night."

"Oh, the dastard!" Georgia breathed. "How could any man bring himself to play so mean a trick?"

"You told me that you judged him to be a man of few scruples; and his provocation was considerable. I've not a doubt now but that he listened at the door to our laughing together over his discomfiture. He must then have gambled on my remaining with you till morning, and despatched one of his outriders post haste to Goodwood."

She nodded. "My mind has been so mazed since Humphrey's discovery of us that I have lacked the wits to put two and two together; but it must be so. The Russian understands more English than he pretends. He heard Charles Fox both speak with me yesterday of Humphrey s morbid spying upon me, and say that after the point-to-point at Goodwood he would be lying there to-night."

"I know it. I was standing but a yard behind you at the time. Vorontzoff then remarked that he had once been at Goodwood. He knew where it lay and would have had no difficulty in giving his messenger directions how to find it."

"But how could the man have done the journey and Humphrey returned here in so short a time?"

"You make my very point. 'Twas near a quarter to one before I joined you. The Russian would then have had to scribble his note, get old Barney to rout out one of his servants, and give the fellow his instructions. The courier could not have left much before half-past one; thus leaving no more than five hours for the double journey, including the rousing of Sir Humphrey from his bed and his dressing to set out. Nine-tenths of the way lies along the Portsmouth Road, where remounts are readily obtainable. Even so, he must have ridden hell for leather the whole distance to get here by dawn; and in his con­dition placing so great a tax upon himself might well have proved too much for him." —

"I will say then that the strain resulted in a fit soon after he arrived. But what reason can I give for his coming to me through the night at such a breakneck pace?"

"Aye, there lies our worst conundrum. To give the real one will lead people to suppose that you were not alone, and any such suggestion would vastly increase our danger."

"We dare not count on evading that. The Russian's courier may talk of the midnight mission on which he was despatched."

"He would know nothing of the contents of the note."

"Humphrey may have left it in his room, and if 'tis found there we would be undone."

" 'Tis more likely that he has it on him," Roger muttered, and stooping down, he began to hunt swiftly through the dead man's pockets.

After a moment he pulled out a paper and held it to the light that was now coming strongly between the still drawn curtains. Then he gave a cry of relief. "Godbe thanked! I have it here! 'Tis anonymous, and brief but to the point. Sir Humphrey quoted it practically ver­batim. Well, we are safe on that score."

Georgina shook her head. "Nay!. On reaching Goodwood Voront­zoff's man would have had to rouse some of the household in order to gain access to Humphrey. 'Tis no every-day occurrence for a guest to call for his horse at three in the morning and gallop off in a flaming temper. In his state of mind he was quite capable of blurting out the fact that he meant to surprise me with a lover. I tell you we dare not count on the reason for his coming remaining secret."

Roger now found himself faced by a most appalling dilemma. He could not deny that there were grounds for her fear. There could be no concealing that fact that Vorontzoff's messenger had caused Sir Humphrey to leave Goodwood for Stillwaters in the middle of the night. If he had disclosed the contents of the note before setting out, any explanation that Georgina might offer to account for his arrival, which did not tally with it, would be proved a lie. Her story as to the way in which he had died would then inevitably become suspect. And everything hung on its acceptance without question.

For these few moments Roger had it in his power to destroy the note.

If he did, and its contents were already known to someone at Goodwood, the very fact of its disappearance would jeopardise Georgina's position still further. It would be believed that she, or whoever had been with her, had searched her husband's body after his death and made away with the incriminating paper in an attempt to conceal their guilt.

On the other hand if he returned the note to the dead man's pocket it was certain to be found there; then suspicion would immediately be aroused that her husband had actually caught her in flagrante delicto,and had been killed in a brawl either by her hand or that of her lover. In that case, if her fears were groundless, it would be by his own act that he would have robbed them of their best chance of escap­ing the gallows.

A clock ticked on, seeming unnaturally loud. Barely five minutes had yet elapsed since Sir Humphrey had breathed his last, but every moment that Georgina now delayed in rousing the house made it more improbable that her story would be believed. Her husband's last effort in mounting the stairs at a run might have caused him to collapse within a few moments of entering her room, but given an interval for recovery such an attack was far less likely; and she could not say that he had been lying there for any length of time without her calling for help. Terribly conscious of the dreadful urgency of reaching some decision Roger stood staring at the floor; but it seemed that whichever course he chose the risk was equally appalling.

"Vorontzoff has revenged himself upon us far more terribly than he can ever have thought to do," Georgina said with sudden bitterness. "His denunciation of me to Humphrey was vicious enough in all conscience but inspired, I've not a doubt, by a grim humour. He meant to return our compliment of last night with interest, and make of us both this morning his April Fools." .

Instantly Roger's glance lifted, and he exclaimed: "Damme! I believe we can yet turn that vicious jest to our own advantage."

"How so?"

"To divert suspicion from you of having had a lover here. How could one better make an April Fool of a man than to cause him to ride twenty-five miles in the middle of the night for no reason. Just think on it! The jealous husband roused from his bed by false intelligence and galloping up the Portsmouth road as though all the furies were after him, only to find his wife sleeping the sleep of innocence. But for its tragic ending 'twould have been the joke of the century."

Georgina's eyes lit up. "And if Humphrey had found himself so fooled, his choler might have been the final straw that led to his apoplexy."

"If rage can kill that might have done it."

"But wait! Why should Vorontzoff have played so bitter a jest on Humphrey, with whom he was not even acquainted?"

" 'Tis common knowledge that there was no love lost between you and your husband. You can say that he had been plaguing you recently with his jealousy; and that to teach him a lesson you put the Russian up to it."

"He may deny that."

"Nay! Why should he? I am convinced that you have hit upon the truth in thinking that Vorontzoff meant to make us April Fools. So 'tis but a modification of the truth to suggest that Sir Humphrey was his intended victim. What better explanation could he offer for the send­ing of his note?"

"The true one."

"He dare not. As a diplomat he must regard his standing with society as a matter of importance; and he would be despised by every­one if he admitted to having taken so base a revenge upon a woman merely because she preferred another to himself."

"Aye, we have him in a cleft stick there."

Roger knelt down and slipped the note back into Sir Humphrey's pocket. Then, as he stood up he said: "Put a bold face on things, sweet, and all will be well. From the foment the Russian learns what has occurred he will be puzzling his wits for a way out of his own dilemma. 'Twill be no small relief to him when he hears of your having given out that 'twas an ill-starred jest, plotted between him and you, which was responsible for Sir Humphrey's sudden appearance. He will back your story to the limit; I am prepared to stake my life on that."

"We shall both be doing so," said Georgina grimly.

"Be not despondent, dear one, I beg." Roger seized her hand and pressed it. "Strive to believe that it happened as you mean to say and others will believe you."

"Others may, but not Vorontzoff."

"Why so? He cannot have known that I was still with you when

Sir Humphrey burst into the room. He gambled on that being so, but I might have left you earlier."

"He is bound to wonder how I learned that he sent the message."

"He will assume that Sir Humphrey must have told you of it; as was in fact the case."

"He knows for a certainty though, that I did not enter into any plot with him to send it, and that 'twas not inspired by me."

"He will assume that your motive for saying so was to protect yourself from the scandal which would result from the truth. That it should save him at the same time from the mortification of having to confess the meanness of his intentions is incidental, but he will count it monstrous fortunate."

"I pray you may be right; but I fear that if he knows me to have lied in one thing he may suspect me with regard to others."

"Oh, come! Even if his interests did not march with yours, in the suppression of the true reason for sending the note, I can scarce believe that his rancour against you is so strong that he would wish to see you sent to the gallows."

"Nay. I trust not. Yet I count it a doubly dire misfortune that he, of all people, should know any part of my story to be false."

"In the worst event 'twould be only his word against yours! He has no proof; not an iota! Courage, Georgina, courage! I tell you there is nought to fear, if you can but tell your story convincingly."

She drew in a sharp breath. "So be it then. I'll say that Humphrey burst in upon me at dawn owing to a message sent him by the Russian at my instigation. 'Twas a joke, albeit a malicious one, intended as a lesson to him on account of his recent persecution of me. He took it monstrous ill and the denouementcoming on top of his gruelling ride, caused him to have a seizure. Is there aught else that I should add?"

"Yes, one thing more," said Roger swiftly. "That weal upon your neck, my poor sweet; where the brute lashed you. 'Tis showing red now, and 'twill be difficult to conceal. You must tell of that blow and, yes—'twill help account for the time we have spent in talking—say that you fainted upon receiving it. When you came to he had already fallen at the foot of the bed, there. You ran to him, unloosed his cravat, and called for help."

"And you? How soon will you reappear to give me the support of your presence?"

" 'Twould ruin all if I returned too soon and was the first to reach you; for Vorontzoff would then regard it as a certainty that I had been here all the time. I'll not delay a second longer than prudence dictates, but must wait until I hear other feet running along the corridor."

"Roger!" she said suddenly, staring at him with wide eyes. "Make K me a vow, I beg."

"Willingly, if it be within my power to fulfil."

"It is. Swear to me that if things go ill you will not make yourself a party to the crime. If the fates are adamant, one of our lives should

still be enough to appease them for such a life as his. 'Twas I who killed him, and. the debt is mine."

"Nay. 'Twas from my blow upon the heart he died; so you ask a thing beyond my power to grant. I'd liefer die from hanging than from shame, and by confessing I might save you at a pinch."

"Then give me strength to fight for both of us. Take me for one moment in your arms before you go."

Stepping up to her, he jerked her to him with unaccustomed violence. They did not kiss, but stood crushed together, straining their muscles to the utmost; so that her arms held his neck as in a vice, and his her body so tightly that it seemed as if her ribs must crack.

With a sudden gasp, as though by mutual consent, they relaxed. He smiled deep into her eyes, took her hand and kissed it, then turned away.

As the door of the boudoir closed behind him she forced herself to kneel again beside her husband's body. She no longer felt afraid but terribly excited; yet her brain was clear and she knew exactly what she had to do. She could feel her heart beating but had no sense of breathlessness. She deliberately counted fifty of its beats in order to give Roger ample time to get back to his room. Then she opened her mouth wide and. began to scream.

Her piercing cries echoed through the lofty room. For what seemed to her an age they were the only sound that broke the still­ness. Fear surged up in her once more. What had happened? Was the house empty or everybody dead, that they did not come? The dead man's face stared up at hers, bloated and unhealthy.

Suddenly, to her stark horror, she thought she saw his eyelids move. Seizing him by the lapels of his coat, she began to shake nun violently, screaming in a hoarse voice: "Humphrey! Humphrey! Humphrey!"

It was at that moment that Vorontzoff entered the room. She did not hear his approach until he was right upon her. Placing a hand upon her shoulder, he pulled her back as he.exclaimed: "Madame, Madame!What in God's name has happened?"

For a second she stared at him without replying. Then she took in the fact that his being the first person to reach her could mean only one thing. He must have been up and waiting in his room, in the hope of witnessing the denouement of his plot to revenge himself upon her.

Flinging wide her arms she cried. "He's dead! He's dead! He told me of the note that brought him here from Goodwood, and it could only have been from you. See what you have done!"

Vorontzoff's dark face flushed. His grip upon her shoulder tightened and he gave her a quick shake. "Say nothing of that; for your sake as well as mine. 'Twould embroil us all in a most unsavoury scandal."

"I have no wish to tell anything but the truth," she flared, now on her mettle. "He entered my room dead-beat from his ride, and finding me alone thought that I had played a trick upon him. His rage was such that he lashed me with his whip and then was taken with an apoplexy. 'Tis you who are responsible."

"He thought you sent the note, eh?" Vorontzoff's dark eyes held hers and she could almost see the thoughts racing behind them as he muttered. "I meant but to repay you and Mr. Brook adequately for the slight you put upon me last night. But if your husband thought 'twas you who had made of him an April Fool I see a way that may save us all from grave embarrassment."

Both, of them caught the sound of running footsteps outside as he went on hurriedly. "You have an English proverb, Madame. Where there is smoke there is also fire. If I tell the truth you must realise what everyone will infer from it. Yet if I say that I sent that note at your behest, intending only to make an April Fool of your husband, 'twill save your name as well as mine!"

Georgina felt hysteria surging up in her. The Russian's attitude was so exactly what Roger had predicted it would be; and his arrival on the scene before anyone else now seemed the dispensation of a Merciful Providence. Fighting down her hysteria she dumbly nodded an acceptance of his suggestion, and next moment found herself the centre of a little crowd. Her father, Roger, Selwyn and old Barney had all come running into the room in various states of attire, and the rest of the household was arriving hard upon their heels.

Colonel Thursby gave one look at the prostrate figure of his son-in-law, then took charge of the situation.

"Quick Barney!" he said. "Send one of the grooms to fetch the doctor; and two of the men to get Sir Humphrey to a bed."

"He is already dead," remarked George Selwyn, who was eyeing the corpse with the morbid curiosity that everything to do with death always aroused in him.

"I judged as much," replied the Colonel, "but 'tis fitting that a doctor should be called without delay."

"He died of a stroke," Selwyn went on. "The suffusion of his face may be largely due to his habits; but he shows all the signs of a seizure brought on either by over exertion or a mental shock."

"Or a fit of rage," added Vorontzoff. "I fear this tragedy is to be attributed to a practical joke plotted between Lady Etheredge and my­self, last night."

Georgina was still crouching by the body, her face buried in her hands. As her father took her arm and drew her towards a chair, he raised his voice and said: "I beg that everyone will now leave the room, with the exception of his Excellency."

Concealing their disappointment at being deprived of a first-hand account of this grim occurrence, the guests and several scared-looking housemaids ebbed away. George Selwyn alone ignored the request and closed the door behind the others. The men had all hurried from their rooms wigless, and his bald, polished skull gave him some resem­blance to a rather benign-looking vulture.

"And now, your Excellency," said the Colonel. "Perhaps you will tell us what you meant a moment back, when you said that Sir Humphrey's death came about through some ill-considered jest?"

The Russian shrugged and spread out his hands. "I am not well acquainted with your English ways; but I understand that to-day is the Feast of Fools, and that it is your national custom to play pranks upon each other, most of which are taken in good part."

" 'Tis true," the Colonel nodded, "although nowadays such prac­tices are mostly confined to the rude country folk who still dance round the Maypole and jump the November bonfires. Did you and my daughter seek then to make an April Fool of Sir Humphrey?"

"Alas, Sir; I fear we did," Vorontzoff admitted; and he then went on to give a brief account of his note and how he Had despatched one of his outriders with it to Goodwood.

When he had done the Colonel turned to Georgina. She was sitting hunched up in an elbow chair with her back to the light, a wisp of handkerchief pressed against her eyes. Her father touched her gently on the shoulder, and said: "Can you make an effort, m'dear, and tell us what happened on Humphrey's coming in to you?"

"There is little to tell," she replied, choking back a sob. "I was asleep when he burst in upon me. He was panting like a grampus from the strain he had put upon himself to get here by dawn. He blurted out the contents of the note he'd had and demanded from me the name of my lover. I told him I had none; and that to teach him a lesson for his ill suspicions of me, had made of him an April Fool. On that his anger suddenly mounted to a monstrous rage and he struck at me with his whip. Look! It caught me here on the neck and seemed to sear half-way through my back. I fainted from the pain and shock. When I regained my senses the room was still, but on sitting up I saw Humphrey lying there on the floor. I jumped out of bed and sought to bring him to by loosening his cravat and throwing a jug of water over him; but 'twas no good. Then the sight of his face sent me into hysterics and my screams brought you all running."

"So that was the way of it," the Colonel murmured. "I pity the poor fellow for having met such an end; but he was always of a hot temper and is not the first man to have died from a fit of rage."

Georgina heaved an inward sigh of relief. She recalled Roger saying that everything would depend on the unquestioning acceptance of her story, and it seemed that matters could not possibly have gone better.

Selwyn had been standing staring at the body. He now pointed to it and remarked. "There is a small wound upon his head; see, the skin is broken just above the left temple. 'Tis a vulnerable spot, and 'tis possible that while he might have recovered from a stroke the blow that made the wound may have been the actual cause of death."

Covering her face again with her hand and handkerchief, Georgina bit her lip. It seemed an ^terminable time before anyone said any­thing, and she had a sudden desperate fear that, after all, the truth was now about to come out. But, at last, her father replied, "He must have struck his head against something as he fell."

There was a discreet knock at the door, and on the Colonel's calling

"Come in," two footmen entered. At his directions they carried Sir Humphrey's body away to one of the spare bedrooms.

Chi the door closing behind them Vorontzoff suddenly stooped and picked up. the cut-glass scent-bottle which, having rolled just under the valance of the bed, had been hidden -until a moment before by the dead man's leg. With a sharp glance at Georgina he asked: "How did this bottle come to be on the floor, Madame?'

Her mouth seemed to go dry and she swallowed quickly, before replying with a shrug. "I do not know, Monsieur. He must have knocked it off the dressing-table—perhaps when he made to strike me with his whip."

"That accounts for the room being so heavy with your scent," remarked her father. "But you should go back to bed now, m'dear, and get some rest after this dreadful shock. I'll send Jenny up to you. Come, gentlemen; there is no more to be done here."

To her immense relief each of them made her a courtly bow and a moment later she was alone. Up till then, although she had been dab­bing at her eyes for appearance sake, she had been too wrought up to weep; but now the tears came and when Jenny arrived she found her mistress crying quietly.

Jenny was not only the soul of loyalty but an extremely kind-hearted and competent girl. She had maided Georgina ever since her first going to Court and had a deep affection for her. With soothing words and little comforting noises she sponged her mistress's face and brushed her hair, then she remade the bed and tucked her up in it. Having lit the fire she took another look at Georgina and, seeing that she was lying quite still with her eyes shut, went off to make a soothing tizane of lime-flowers.

On her return with the steaming brew she said: "Now drink this Milady; 'twill do you good." Then she pointed at two large white pills in the saucer and added. "I met with my Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel in the passage, and his Lordship says, his compliments to you Milady, and please to pleasure him by taking these, for they'll send you to sleep and prevent you having the headache."

"Thank you, Jenny," Georgina smiled a little wanly. "Mr. Brook tells me that Lord Edward is something of an expert upon strange drugs; so thank him for me please and tell him that I took his medicine gladly. Did you perchance see Mr. Brook when you were fetching this dish of tisane for me?"

"I did, indeed Milady," Jenny smiled back. "He took me aside to inquire for you, and I was please to tell you that he thinks it more discreet not to come to your boudoir to-day unless you send a message by me desiring him to wait upon you. I was to tell you, too, that he loves you dearly."

"I know it Jenny, and I love him with an equal fondness; but not a word of that except between us two."

Jenny bridled. "I'd liefer have my tongue cut out, and you should know better than to suggest otherwise. Take your pills now, and get to sleep. I'll stay and do some mending by the fire, so as to be here should you need me."

"Bless you, Jenny. You're a dear, and I'd be lost without you," Georgina murmured; then she swallowed the pills, finished the tisane and settled down in her big comfortable bed.

She began to think of Humphrey and cried a little at the remem­brance of their early days together. As the beautiful Georgina Thursby she had not only been the reigning toast of the town but a rich heiress to boot. Half a hundred suitors had striven to win her hand; old men and young ones, some with coronets, others with great fortunes, and some with nothing but good looks and a load of debts. Humphrey had been only one out of half-a-dozen that she had seriously con­sidered as a husband. Mentally he was an overgrown child, and the only topic upon which he could talk with fluency was horses; but he had been handsome in a fair, bold way, was well-made, easy to get on with and he owned Still waters. It was the last which had made her take him in preference to a good-looking young Earl.

To begin with, their marriage had been successful, as such eigh­teenth-century marriages went. She recalled the fun that they had had during their first winter's hunting together, when she had been so proud of him as the finest and most daring rider in the field. Then she remembered with nausea his bouts of drunkenness, and the way in which he seduced every maid that she took into the house. It was not his unfaithfulness that she had minded but his lack of taste, and the squalidness of his indulging in those casual amours in the attics under their own roof. But she knew that she too had been to blame. She had soon become impatient of his stupidity and began to amuse herself with more intelligent men.

And now it was all over. Poor, weak, stupid Humphrey was dead; and would never blow a hunting-horn till he got red in the face, any more. She thought of his hearty laugh and the tears came into her eyes again; then she suddenly realised that she was not in the least sorry about his death, but only that they had not been able to remain good friends. Her mind wandered to a dinner service of three hundred pieces with the Etheredge crest that she had ordered to be made in China soon after their marriage. The merchant in the City had said that he could promise delivery in from three to four years, so it might arrive at any time now.

Then she fell into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke it was well on in the afternoon. She felt rested and her mind was clear; but the events of the early morning flooded back into it with a terrible reality that precluded any possibility of their having been a nightmare.

Jenny heard her stir and came over to her, carrying a tray with some cold chicken breast in aspic and fruit upon it. As she set it down on the bed-table to tempt her mistress she said: "You're looking better already, Milady. Your sleep has done you good. Now eat this up and you'll be as fit as a trivet."

"Thank you, Jenny." Georgina sat up and, while the girl re­arranged her pillows, asked with an anxiety which she could not conceal. "What—what is happening downstairs?"