When they got out into the open air, Katherine noticed that Mr. Strobridge had a fierce and rather hunted expression on his face. He got into the taxi after the two ladies without a word, and said very little as they drove to Miss d'Estaire's tiny flat in Knightsbridge. "Perhaps as it is so fine you will let me dismiss the cab and we might walk across the Park," he suggested as he rejoined Katherine after seeing Miss Arabella in at the door. And she consented. The air was crisp and fresh and the dusk was gathering. It was a quarter to six o'clock. They turned towards Stanhope Gate and walked in silence. Then Mr. Strobridge stopped suddenly and drew Katherine to a chair. "Katherine," he said, and his voice was husky. "Is it so?" "Is what so?" she questioned, to be quite certain what he meant. "Is the Duke to be your objective?" She did not answer. She was weighing things. Gerard's assistance would be necessary for the pursuance of a plan which had been forming in her head since she had left the Houses of Parliament. She was swift to decide, and swift to act at critical moments in her life. "Do you think you have any right to ask me such a question?" "Yes." "What right?" "I love you." She shrugged her shoulders. "No, I will never admit it." "It is true enough--Oh! Katherine, there is nothing I would not do for you and you know it, only I cannot help wanting to be certain if I am to expect the worst. I feared it at once when you looked into his eyes. Has my doom come at last then?" "You are paying me a great compliment; you seem to think that the matter lies only in my hands." "You will accomplish anything you desire." She did not speak. "Katherine," he pleaded, and there was anguish in his voice, "tell me the truth, whether I have the right to ask it or no. The idea has come to you that this would be worth winning, this position--has it not?" "Yes." "He is fifty-three years old, Mordryn--but a fifty-three which women adore--You would probably fall in love with him also." "It is possible." "Can you expect me to be anything but pained then?" "I have always told you that I consider you only as a friend, and that I only view your emotions for me as those of friendship; therefore there should be no pain even in such an idea according to my view." "There is." "I am sorry." "But it does not change your determination?" "No." "I understand a man's killing a woman sometimes," and he clenched his hands passionately. "So do I--when she deceives him, never because she is honest and unvarying. I have never deceived you or led you to hope for anything but friendship--that you have in full, and you have hundreds of times promised me yours; if you meant it I now ask you to give me a proof of it." "What proof?"