"No," she went on, very formally, "this is not a private room; you owe me no apology for being here. Indeed, I am rather obliged to you, Mr. Woods, for none of us knew of these secret drawers. Here is the key to the central compartment, if you will be kind enough to point out the other one. Dear, dear!" Margaret concluded, languidly, "all this is quite like a third-rate melodrama. I haven't the least doubt you will discover a will in there in your favour, and be reinstated as the long-lost heir and all that sort of thing. How tiresome that will be for me, though." She was in a mood to be cruel to-night. She held out the keys to him, in a disinterested fashion, and dropped them daintily into his outstretched palm, just as she might have given a coin to an unusually grimy mendicant. But the tips of her fingers grazed his hand. That did the mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve in his body a-tingle. "Peggy!" he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said "Peggy, Peggy!" in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to have no intention of saying anything further. Indeed, words would have seemed mere tautology to any one who could have seen his eyes. Margaret looked into them for a minute, and her own eyes fell before their blaze, and her heart--very foolishly--stood still for a breathing-space. Subsequently she recalled the fact that he was a fortune-hunter, and that she despised him, and also observed--to her surprise and indignation--that he was holding her hand and had apparently been doing so for some time. You may believe it, that she withdrew that pink-and-white trifle angrily enough. "Pray don't be absurd, Mr. Woods," said she. Billy caught up the word. "Absurd!" he echoed--"yes, that describes what I've been pretty well, doesn't it, Peggy? I _was_ absurd when I let you send me to the right-about four years ago. I realised that to-day the moment I saw you. I should have held on like the very grimmest death; I should have bullied you into marrying me, if necessary, and in spite of fifty Anstruthers. Oh, yes, I know that now. But I was only a boy then, Peggy, and so I let a boy's pride come between us. I know now there isn't any question of pride where you are concerned--not any question of pride nor of any silly misunderstandings, nor of any uncle's wishes, nor of anything but just you, Peggy. It's just you that I care for now--just you." "Ah!" Margaret cried, with a swift intake of the breath that was almost a sob. He had dared, after all; oh, it was shameless, sordid! And yet (she thought dimly), how dear that little quiver in his voice had been were it unplanned!--and how she could have loved this big, eager boy were he not the hypocrite she knew him! _She'd_ show him! But somehow--though it was manifestly what he deserved--she found she couldn't look him in the face while she did it.