corridor from the study. Dick sank back into his chair and looked up at his brother.

"Billiards?" said Randal. "Give me fifty, and I'll play you a hundred up."

Dick shook his head. "Too lazy," he answered.

"Miss Caldegard gone to bed?" asked Randal.

"Looked as if she was coming back—though she did say she was tired."

"Then I'll practise that canon you were showing me. See you again," said Randal, and went upstairs.

In the passage above he met Amaryllis. The sound of their voices, but not their words, trickled down to Dick in the hall.

Then she came; and the man, lest he should show in his face the pleasure that came with her, did not look at the girl until she was at the foot of the stair; and when he did raise his eyes, it was to find hers averted, and to see her turn at once to her left and make for the study. Just as she was disappearing into the narrow corridor, he saw, or thought that he saw, her white shoulder shaken by a sob without sound.

With an eager instinct he sprang to his feet—and sat down again. If she wanted his help, she would ask for it.

Almost at once, however, he rose again, unsatisfied and restless; and hardly knew what he was doing before he found himself at the study door, and in his ears a sound which told him that he had read her shoulders correctly.

He went in, closing the door as softly as he had opened it.

Randal had left his shaded lamp burning on the writing-table. And there, shining head bent over the table and lit by the broad circle of light, her body shaken with suppressed sobbing, was Amaryllis.

Dick was close to her before he realized that she had not heard his approach. Gently he touched her arm.

Without starting, she looked round at him, and he saw the tears on her face.

"Excuse my butting in," he said. "Do tell me what's the matter."

The girl tried to speak and failed.

"I'm a stranger to almost everybody here," he said. "When you're in a hole, the stranger's about the best man to take troubles to."

Amaryllis shook her head.

"Come, let's see if I can't help," pleaded Dick.

In her mind Amaryllis, as she felt the tender concern of his voice, and looked up into the brown face above the white shirt-front, was struck with a consoling sense of protection, and knew that, while he was the last person she could "take her trouble to," yet his was the sympathy which would most surely soften, if it could not remove, any misfortune which could ever befall her.

"I can't—I can't! I wish I could," she said, winking her eyes. "But I'm going to be good. Please be a dear, Mr. Bellamy, and go back to the hall. I shall be all right soon."

"Promise?"

"Honest," said Amaryllis.

Dick closed the door behind him, and walked up the passage with the limp which was always more strongly marked in moments of preoccupation.

The balls were clicking in the billiard-room upstairs, and he hesitated with a foot on the lowest step. But the bond of the protection which had been accepted even while confidence had been withheld, seemed to tie him to the post she had assigned him.

He lit a cigar, sank into the very chair he had left, and let his mind revert to his discontented mood of the afternoon, laughing softly as he admitted that it had needed only the trace of trouble on that charming face to convince him that he was indeed "all in."

Something in the girl's face as she looked up at him had planted a seed of hope.

A clock somewhere struck softly and many times. The cigar had been a dead stump between his teeth for how long Dick did not know.

Randal's voice broke his reverie.

"I'm sick of knocking the balls about," he said. "Come and give me a game, you slacker."

"Eleven!" exclaimed Dick. "Of course I'll play. Let's go and fetch Miss Caldegard and I'll play the two of you."

"All right," said Randal. "Where is she?"

"In your study," replied Dick, leading the way. It was an hour since he had left her and he was anxious to rouse the girl from her depression.

He opened the door, entered quickly, and stopped.

"Good God, she's gone!" he exclaimed.

"What d'you mean?" asked Randal.

"I left her here about an hour ago," said Dick. "She's not come out this way. There's something wrong."

"My dear boy, don't excite yourself," said his brother. "Here's the french-window. I expect she's out there."

"With bare shoulders and thin dress? It's been raining like hell since ten o'clock. I tell you there's something wrong," said Dick, taking one stride to the table, and lifting the lamp above his head. He glanced swiftly round the room.

"Look at your safe," he said.

Randal, impressed by his brother's tone, went quickly to the alcove, between whose looped curtains showed the green door of a safe embedded in the wall. Before he touched it,

"My God! There's a key!" he said.

"Where's yours?" snapped Dick.

"Here," said Randal, pulling a bunch from his pocket.

"Look inside."

Randal turned the key, swung back the heavy door, groped for a minute, and swung round with a face like death.

"What's gone?" cried Dick.

"Caldegard's drug-bottle and formula!"