“Now listen to me, Thalia,” he said between his teeth. “I love you and I want to marry you. I haven’t told you that before, but you’ve guessed it. I am not going to allow you to go out of my life. Do you understand that? I do not believe that you are a thief and----” Very gently she disengaged his grip. “Mr. Beardmore,” she said in a low voice, “you are just being quixotic and foolish! You have told me what you will not allow, and I tell you that I am not going to allow you to ruin your life through your infatuation for a convicted thief. You know nothing of me except that I am a seemingly nice girl whom you met by accident in the country, and it is my duty to be your mother and your maiden aunt.” There was a glint of amusement in her eye as she took his offered hand. “Some day perhaps we shall meet again, and by that time the glamour of romance will have worn off. Good-bye.” She had disappeared into the booking hall before he could find his voice. Chapter X. The Summons of The Crimson Circle Thalia Drummond went back to the lodging she had occupied before she had entered Mr. Harvey Froyant’s service as resident secretary, and apparently the story of her ill-deeds had preceded her, for the stout landlady gave her a chilly welcome, and had she not continued to pay the rent of her one room during the time she was working for Froyant, it was probable that she would not have been admitted. It was a small room, neatly if plainly furnished, and oblivious to the landlady’s glum face and cold reception, she went to her apartment and locked the door behind her. She had spent a very unpleasant week, for she had been remanded in custody, and her very clothes seemed to exhale the musty odour of Holloway Gaol. Holloway, however, had an advantage which No. 14, Lexington Street, did not possess. It had an admirable system of bathrooms, for which the girl was truly grateful as she began to change. She had plenty to occupy her mind. Harvey Froyant… Jack Beardmore… she frowned as though at a distasteful thought, and tried to dismiss him from her mind. It was a relief to go back to Froyant. She almost hated him. She certainly despised him. The time she had spent in his house had been the most wretched period in her life. She had taken her meals with the servants and had been conscious that every scrap of food she ate had been measured and weighed and duly apportioned by a man whose cheque for seven figures would have been honoured. “At least, he didn’t make love to you, my dear,” she said to herself, and smiled. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Harvey Froyant making love to anybody. She recalled the days she had followed him about his big house with a notebook in her hand, whilst he searched for evidence of his servants’ neglect, drawing his fingers along the polished shelves in the library in a vain search for dust, turning up carpet corners, examining silver, or else counting, as he did regularly every week, the contents of his still-room.