The woman's manner was so odd that Miss Broad wondered if she was a little touched in the head, or if she had been drinking. She looked round the room, at a loss what to say. Her glance lighted on a large panel photograph which occupied the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was Mr Holland. She recognised it with a start. It was the best likeness of him she had seen. He had not given her a copy, nor any portrait of himself, which was half as good. Miss Bewicke's companion was watching her. 'You are looking at the photograph? It is Mr Holland, a friend of Miss Bewicke's, the dearest friend she has in the world.' 'You mean he was her friend?' 'He was? He is--none better. Miss Bewicke has many friends--oh, yes, a great many; she is so beautiful--is she not beautiful?--but there are none of them to her like Guy.' The woman's familiar use of Mr Holland's Christian name stung Miss Broad into silence. That she lied she knew; to say that, to-day, Mr Holland was still Miss Bewicke's dearest friend was to attain the height of the ridiculous. That the young lady knew quite well. She was also aware that, for some reason which, as yet, she did not fathom, this foreign creature was making herself intentionally offensive. None the less, she did not like to hear her lover spoken of in such fashion by such lips. Still less did she like to see his portrait where it was. Had she acted on the impulse of the moment, she would have torn it into shreds. And perhaps she might have gone even as far as that had she not perceived something else, which she liked, if possible, still less than the position occupied by the gentleman's photograph. On a table lay a walking-stick. A second's glance was sufficient to convince her of the ownership. It was his--a present from herself. She had had it fitted with a gold band; his initials, which she had had cut on it, stared her in the face. What was his walking-stick--her gift--doing there? The woman's lynx-like eyes were following hers. 'You are looking at the walking-stick? It, also, is Mr Holland's.' 'What is it doing here?' The woman shrugged her shoulders. 'He left it behind him, I suppose. Perhaps he was in too great a hurry, or Miss Bewicke. Sometimes, when one is in a great hurry to get away, one forgets little things which are of no importance.' She called his walking-stick--her gift to him--a thing of no importance! What was the creature hinting at? Miss Broad would not condescend to ask, although she longed to know. 'As I tell you, Miss Bewicke is not at home. She is at the Hotel Metropole at Brighton. Would you like to take Mr Holland's walking-stick to--her?' There was an accent on the pronoun which the visitor did not fail to notice. 'What name shall I give to Miss Bewicke?' 'I am Miss Broad.' 'Miss Broad--Letty Broad? Oh, yes, I remember. They were talking and laughing about you--Mr Holland and she. Perhaps, after all, you had better not go down to Brighton.'