Davids, coming in before the first gray light began to make the lights pale, stopped on the threshold and looked pitifully at the boy and girl. Both were asleep; the boy with a tear-stained face; the girl like a lovely marble image, an image of a woman who has drunk deep of a bitter cup in her youth, and must remember the taste of it till her dying day. The inspector was a hard man, and this was his trade, but something in the sight touched his heart. “Poor children!” he said softly. “Poor babes that have never been young,” and, with a gentle hand, he touched Ismay’s shoulder. “Wake up!” he cried softly. “You must catch the early train back to the country. You can’t do any good here.” She started to her feet; wan, haggard, with black rings round her eyes. “Me alone?” she said. He noted approvingly that she showed no symptom of screaming. “Yes, alone. It is our only chance. Can you get into your room without being seen?” “I think so, if there’s time.” Her eyes widened like a cat’s as she looked at his face. She was awake now to the new day. And at what she saw there she cried out aloud, her icy calm shattered at last. “You’ve been very brave. Can you be braver still?” the man said slowly. And the girl, whose strength was nearly done, said “yes.” CHAPTER XXXI. “SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!” The conversation had been exciting enough, yet Mr. Wray was bored. “Where is Ismay?” he asked shortly, as he finished his very late breakfast. Mrs. Trelane shrugged her shoulders. “She’s in bed. She told Jessie she wasn’t to be disturbed till she rang.” Wray’s eyebrows went up. Truly, these were airs in a girl who had been used to cooking her own breakfast, and been glad to have it to cook. “I’ll go to her.” Mrs. Trelane rose quickly, reading his face anxiously. She had watched him open his letters, and she had seen annoyance in his face. “What do you want Ismay for?” Cristiane inquired coquettishly. Wray suppressed a bad word. All the previous evening Cristiane, whose successes had gone to her head, had fairly flung herself at his head. She had sung to him, talked to him, bored him, till he could have strangled her. And now she was hammering the last few nails into her coffin. “I don’t want her, especially,” he said coldly, wishing the little fool would hold her tongue. Cristiane laughed. “Do you know what I think?” she asked. “I think you are in love with her.” Under the table he shut one hand hard. “Do you? Why? “Ain’t people in love when they kneel down beside a girl, and kiss her, once, twice, twenty times?” nodding her head knowingly at each number. Wray was for a moment taken back. So the little fool had seen him! Now she had begun to suspect; the next thing she would begin to talk, perhaps to Cylmer; and if he carried out his schemes it would be with a light on them that would make them plain to the world.