George sprang forward; grasped Bill's hand. “Good old buck!” he cried. “Good old Bill! I'm awfully sorry, Bill. You're a stunner, Bill. Isn't he a stunner, Mary?” “He _is_ a stunner,” Mary agreed. The stunner, red beneath this praise, warmly returned George's grip. When they released, “I say, George, you _are_ an ass, you know,” he said. “Why on earth didn't you tell me what you were up to?” “You weren't there, old man, when it began. You were in London. How on earth was I to know your paper would come plunging into the business?” The memory of the pains that paper had caused him swept all else from George's mind. Indignation seized him. “It was a scandalous bit of work, Bill. 'Pon my soul it's simply shameful that a newspaper can go and interfere in a purely private matter like that. Yes, it is, Mary. Don't you interrupt. Bill understands. I don't blame you, Bill; you were doing your duty. I blame the editor. What did he want to push into it for? I tell you that paper drove me up and down the country till I was pretty well dead. It's all very well for you to grin, Bill.” “I'm not grinning.” “You are grinning.” George threw a bitter note into his declamations. “Of course, you can afford to grin. What was agony to me was hot stuff for you. I expect you've made your reputation over this show. Everything's turned out all right for you--” Bill took that bitter note. “Rather!” he broke in. “Rather! I pulled it off, didn't I? I found the rotten cat, didn't I? I wasn't made a fool of for two days in a country inn, was I? I've not got the sack all through you, have I?” George instantly forgot his personal sorrows. “Oh, I say, Bill, you haven't, have you?” Bill, not expecting the interruption, confessed a little lamely: “No, I haven't. I _haven't_--as it turns out. But I might have--if it wasn't for--” He paused a moment; sadly said, “Anyway, just as I thought I'd got her, I've lost Margaret again.” In those fierce days when her Bill was the Daily Special Commissioner, Margaret had confided in Mary the promise Mr. Marrapit had made should Bill find the cat. Now Mary was filled with sympathy. “Oh, Mr. Wyvern!” she cried, “I _am_ sorry! What has happened? How do you know? Do tell us everything of when you went to Herons' Holt last night.” Bill took a chair. He said gloomily: “There's not much to tell. I felt I couldn't wait at that infernal inn any longer, so I left the detective in charge, went to the inn where we'd found George, didn't see him, and came back to Herons' Holt. I saw old Marrapit for about two minutes in the hall. He foamed at me all about George, foamed out that I was one of George's friends, and foamed me out of the door before I could get in a word. Said I never was to come near the place again. I asked him about Margaret, and he had a kind of fit--a kind of fit.” George said softly: “I know what you mean, old man.”