“I cannot help thinking,” he said to Yootha while they were discussing the mystery on the day after La Planta’s acquittal, “that he knows something too concerning what happened at Henley regatta. I have felt that all along. And had he been found guilty of conniving at Schomberg’s death we might have been in a position to escape from what now threatens us. However, I believe that in the end we shall be able to snap our fingers at the people who are trying to blackmail us, so you must try to cheer up, my darling.” They were sitting out on the heather under the shadow of the Sugarloaf Mountain in Monmouthshire, where they had been staying for a fortnight at the Angel Hotel in Abergavenny, and, but for the development which threatened they would have been completely happy. As it was, when they succeeded in forgetting what the future might hold for them, the hours were the happiest they had ever spent. It was now August, but Monmouthshire is one of the few counties which holiday makers seem consistently to overlook in spite of its lovely scenery, with the result that the picturesque moors were almost deserted. For some minutes they remained silent. The quietude of the countryside, the almost oppressive heat, the wonderful landscape which unfolded itself before them, stretching away to the silvery river Usk visible some miles down the valley, seemed in harmony with their mood. And then presently, gently placing his arm about her, Preston drew Yootha closer to him and pressed his lips to hers. “My darling,” he murmured, “whatever happens, believe me I shall love you always--always. Doesn’t it seem strange that for all these years we should not have met, and that then we should have become acquainted by the merest chance? Supposing I had not happened to wander into Bond Street that morning, just a year ago--it was the ninth of August, the date of the opening of our great offensive on the Western front--and that I had not been with George, who knew La Planta, and that La Planta had not invited us to lunch with him at the Ritz we should probably be strangers still! I believe I fell in love with you that day, Yootha; certainly you attracted me in the most extraordinary way directly we were introduced--you and your delightful friend, Cora.” “And yet during the whole lunch you spoke hardly a word, and Jessica thought you dull and stupid, I remember,” she exclaimed, laughing. “I know, because I heard her say so to Aloysius Stapleton.” “I dare say I was dull and stupid. I certainly felt dull, but several months of hospital life are not calculated to sharpen one’s intelligence, are they? As for Jessica, from the moment I set eyes on her something in her personality repelled me, though afterwards, at her house, when we had that lovely music, I felt for the first time less antagonistic. But if I knew her twenty years I should never get to like her, or, indeed, trust her. Doesn’t she affect you in that way?”