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 "Unfortunately," said Hugh, "I'd left London before that message came. My servant wired it on to the Post Office here. Not that it would have made any difference. I should have come, anyway."

An involuntary smile hovered round her lips for a moment; then she grew serious again. "It's very dangerous for you to come here," she remarked quietly. "If once those men suspect anything, God knows what will happen."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that it was too late to worry about that; then he changed his mind. "And what is there suspicious," he asked, "in an old friend who happens to be in the neighbourhood dropping in to call? Do you mind if I smoke?"

The girl beat her hands together. "My dear man," she cried, "you don't understand. You're judging those devils by your own standard. They suspect everything—and everybody."

"What a distressing habit," he murmured. "Is it chronic, or merely due to liver? I must send 'em a bottle of good salts. Wonderful thing—good salts. Never without some in France."

The girl looked at him resignedly. "You're hopeless," she remarked—"absolutely hopeless."

"Absolutely," agreed Hugh, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "Wherefore your telephone message? What's the worry?" She bit her lip and drummed with her fingers on the arm of her chair. "If I tell you," she said at length, "will you promise me, on your word of honour, that you won't go blundering into The Elms, or do anything foolish like that?"