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saw you burn it.’
    ‘You saw me burn a blank cheque which cost me twopence—a little comedy, just to set your mind at rest. The cheque you, shall we say altered, is—you’d like to know where it is, wouldn’t you? But you just go on guessing. It won’t do you any harm so long as you behave yourself and don’t let me have any more of this nonsense.’
    There was only a matter of six feet between them. Neither of them moved to make the distance less. She stood looking at him until every shade of the angry colour had slowly drained away, leaving her dreadfully pale. She seemed as if she were going to speak, but though her lips moved, there were no words. Words wouldn’t butter her bread or keep her child.
    He said in that easy, familiar tone, ‘Run along and tell Marsham.’ And then, just as she had reached the door and was going out, he called after her, ‘Tell him who is coming, and then send him along here to me. There was something I meant to have drawn his attention to.’
    She stood there, her hand on the door, a little surprised. ‘And you forgot?’
    ‘My dear Milly, I never forget anything—you ought to know that. Let us say I—saved it up.’
    She gave him a long, hard look before she turned and went.
    CHAPTER VIII
    It was between half past six and seven o’clock when Bill Waring drove his old rattletrap of a car under the pillared portico of Vineyards. He jumped out and rang the bell with a good deal of vigour. He had, as a matter of fact, run well out of any stock of patience which he may originally have possessed. Rumbold had kept him and kept him, breaking off in the middle of their session to go and see somebody else, and only coming back to insist that they lunch together before going on with their talk. By the time he finally got away it wasn’t going to be possible to make Vineyards by daylight. Since he neither knew nor wished to know Herbert Whitall, and could hardly expect a welcome from him or from Lady Dryden, not only the conventions but common prudence might have suggested that he would be well advised to find somewhere to put up for the night and defer any attempt to see Lila until the morning. Prudence had never been his strongest point, and he was far beyond caring for the conventions.
    He flung up the drive of Vineyards as if it belonged to him, rang the bell with a will, and stood champing on the top step. Marsham being busy with his silver, the door was opened by the lad Frederick, a tall, well-grown boy who was putting in time and saving money between leaving school and being called up for his military service. He knew that it was pretty late for a visitor, but he didn’t feel equal to saying so. The impatient gentleman who was asking for Miss Dryden might be a relation, or he might have been invited and Mr. Marsham hadn’t happened to mention it. When Bill Waring stepped past him into the hall he therefore showed him into the small room immediately to the left of the front door, turned on the ceiling light, and having inquired what name he should say, departed in search of Miss Lila. Having ascertained that she was not in the drawing-room, he was about to look elsewhere, when he encountered Lady Dryden.
    ‘If you please, my lady, there’s a gentleman asking for Miss Dryden.’
    Her eyebrows rose.
    ‘A gentleman? What name did he give?’
    ‘Mr. Waring, my lady.’
    Lady Dryden did not permit her feelings to appear. If it became borne in upon Frederick that she was displeased, and that her displeasure might be formidable, it was not because of anything in her look or in her voice. She said smoothly;
    ‘Miss Dryden is in her room. There is no need to trouble her. I will see Mr. Waring. Where is he?’
    When the door began to open Bill Waring had a moment of sickening apprehension, because as soon as he saw Lila he would know what he had come here to find out. If she ran to him, if she wanted him to get her out of this mess she had somehow been pushed into, he was prepared