“You don’t mean it?” she cried fiercely, but with the low voice of caution. “You don’t mean to say that we’ll have to get out of here?” How could she not have known him that day in Onslow Square? “I don’t know,” moaned the woman. A shudder shook her like a leaf. “Did he look at me, or anything? I was too taken up--with the girl. I didn’t notice”--her words coming in jerks. “Could you see from where you were?” “Yes,” said the girl frankly; “he stared at you like anything.” “Get me a drink,” the elder woman said slowly. “There’s brandy in my bag.” She swallowed it, and sat silent, with closed eyes. The color crept back into her lips, and she lifted her head and looked at her daughter. “I’m making a fool of myself,” she ejaculated. “He never saw me, never heard of me, any more than any one else did when there was all that trouble. But it was that very Miles Cylmer who was Abbotsford’s dearest friend, and strained every nerve to find out who the woman was that--that was at the bottom of it.” Her eyes dilated till they looked black in her colorless face. Ismay stared at her mother. “Do you think he ever saw that photograph I made you go back and get, when you--found him?” she asked sternly. “If he did, you may have trouble. He looked a determined sort of man, dogged, you know. But he’s the handsomest man I ever laid eyes on!” “What does it matter what he looks like, if he is that Cylmer?” Mrs. Trelane cried angrily. “I talk about life and death, and you go on about the man’s looks. What do they matter to you?” “A great deal.” The girl’s eyes glittered very green to-night. “The minute I saw him I meant to marry him. Do you suppose I’d take pains to make him like me if he were ugly?” “I know you wouldn’t; not to save me from anything,” Mrs. Trelane returned bitterly. She had good reason to know that no power on earth could force Ismay to be civil. “But you’re talking nonsense,” she went on. “As things are, we must try to keep the man from coming here. You can’t dare to try your hand on him; we must steer clear of him.” “And set him wondering why we should try to avoid him? No, no! Let me alone. Only try to throw your mind back. Did he get into Abbotsford’s room before you had taken away that picture?” She looked like an accusing judge at her mother, cowering on the sofa under her eyes. “Oh, Ismay!” the woman cried wretchedly, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I went back for it--I was just taking it--when there was a noise. I got behind a curtain. Some one came in, and went out again, without noticing--Abbotsford”--her voice low, tremulous with weeping. “I took the photograph and got out of the house somehow. I didn’t meet any one. I must have been at home an hour before any one--found Abbotsford.” “Then why should you be so idiotic?”--jumping up in her relief. “It could not have been Cylmer who came in----” “It was. He said so afterward.”