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274 before she came up to bed. And she shuddered at the cause of it. Once again, she and Archie had strolled out after dinner, and, on passing the windows of his father's study, their steps noiseless on the grass, Archie had laid his hand on her arm with a gesture to command silence, and had tiptoed with her across the gravel to his father's windows. Lord Tintagel was inside, and, even as they looked, he took a bottle out of which he had been pouring something, and locked it up in a cupboard.

Archie turned a face beaming with merriment on her.

"Come in," he whispered, "to say good-night. Leave it all to me. It will be huge fun."

He waited a moment, and began talking loudly to her on some indifferent subject for a few seconds. Then he said:

"Come and say good-night to my father, Jessie," and they entered together.

Lord Tintagel was seated in his chair by this time: there was just one empty glass on the tray, with a syphon, and no sign of a second one. Archie began walking up and down the room, his eyes looking swiftly and stealthily in every direction.

"Jessie and I have just come in to say good-night," he said. "We're all going up to town to-morrow. Won't you really come, father?"

"I've already said I won't," said Lord Tintagel sharply.

Archie suddenly saw what he had been looking for.

"Hullo, here's a funny thing," he said. "Here's a glass on the floor."

He picked it up, smelled it, and burst into a peal of laughter.

"Father, it's too bad of you!" he said. "There have I been keeping our bargain, while you"

He broke off, laughing again.