“As you are fond of music,” she said to Preston, “you must honor me again with your company the next time I have any. Men, for the most part, are such Philistines. The only ‘music’ they seem to care for is comic opera and ragtime.” She talked more or less mechanically, for all the while her thoughts were running on the loss she had just sustained. One by one her guests of the previous night passed in review through her mind. Each was in turn carefully considered, then dismissed as being above suspicion in connection with the theft. Then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, she thought of Cora Hartsilver, and of her husband who had killed himself. Quickly Yootha Hagerston followed--she rose into the vision of her imagination with extraordinary distinctness. Both women she disliked, she reflected; and she was sure that they disliked her. And now she remembered being told--yes, Archie La Planta had told her--that Captain Preston admired the girl. Archie had said that Preston “admired her extremely.” And that girl, and Preston himself, also Cora Hartsilver, had been trying--this Archie had also told her--to extract information from him concerning herself and her past. Could it be mere coincidence that Preston and his friend Blenkiron had called unexpectedly like this--the first time they had ever called--and that Blenkiron should have asked her questions about Australia? Who could have told him, she wondered, that her father’s name was Robertson? “Talking of Australia,” Blenkiron’s voice held her, “your father has been dead a good many years, I suppose?” “Ten years,” she heard herself saying; and unconsciously she wondered why she said it. “And your mother?” “I was quite a child when she died.” “And they lived at Monkarra?” “My father did. My mother died in Charleville.” “Strange,” Blenkiron was speaking to himself, “I should not have met your father, or your mother, during the years I was in Queensland.” “But why should you have met them? What were you doing in Australia?” “I did all sorts of things there. I prospected for gold for some years; and for years I was working on a railway--engineering work, you understand; and then for a time I was sheep farming out there. It is, in my opinion, the one country on earth.” “And yet you have settled in England.” “Because my interests are all in England now. The war made such a change.” Suddenly Preston rose. “I must be going, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson,” he said. “I hope you will invite me the next time you have music.” “Indeed I shall not forget--that is, if I have your address. Shall I write it down?” She went over to the escritoire, and he followed her. “Thirty-three, Q., Fig Tree Court, Temple,” he said, and she made a note of it. He limped slowly down the stairs, supporting himself on his stick, and Blenkiron followed. As they made their way into Oxford Street, Blenkiron spoke.