"Sit down," she exclaimed, "and tell me everything that's happened to you since we last met! Why, it must be, let me see, quite twelve years ago?" She took up a china box: "Have a cigarette--I'll have one too." He waved the box aside, took out his own case, and held it out to her. "I think you'll like these," he said. Then he struck a match, and as their fingers touched, the lighting of her cigarette took quite a little while. "This _is_ jolly!" He sank back into one of Katty's well-cushioned easy chairs. "You've the prettiest room I've been in since I came to England, Mrs. Winslow." "Oh, then you haven't been into Laura's boudoir?" "Yes, I've just come from there." Again his face altered as he spoke, and this time there came a look of frowning anger over it. Then, almost as if he read the unspoken question in her mind, he said slowly, "Look here, Mrs. Winslow, as you seem to know my sister so well, I may as well tell you the truth. I've just been ordered out of her house by my brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he and I had a row years ago?" He was looking at her rather hard as he spoke, and she nodded her head. "Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though I don't know what it was about." He breathed a little more freely. "It was about money," he said bitterly. "Just what one would expect it to be with a man like Godfrey. He was furious because I got Laura to lend me some money. It was to pay a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in those days. But I'm a good boy now!" "Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! You're Oliver Tropenell's partner, aren't you, Mr. Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you." Gillie--his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost like a girl's--looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" he exclaimed. "Yes, he and I are tremendous pals. He's been the best friend to me man ever had." "I am _so_ sorry for Laura," said Katty gently. She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian embroidery which covered a small table close to her elbow, and she was thinking--hard. At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and the tea appeared. While the table was being drawn up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, and a taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on working busily. And by the time the maid was leaving the room, she had come to a decision. Even to her it was a momentous decision--how momentous to others she was destined never to know. Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. Baynton, I am sorry indeed for poor Laura." "I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't want to stay at The Chase. I always thought it a gloomy place in the old days, when I was a child--I mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. Of course I shall see Laura again--Godfrey can't prevent that! In fact he admitted that he couldn't."