Slipping her arm round Jane Raytham’s waist, she took her back to the drawing room, insisted upon her lying on the couch, propping a pillow under her head, and throwing a heavy silken scarf that drooped on a chair back over her feet. “You’re very good,” murmured Lady Raytham, “and I loathe you so much!” “I suppose you do,” said Leslie, “And yet you shouldn’t, because I haven’t been at all unpleasant.” Jane nodded her head in agreement. “Will you keep very quiet when I tell you this? I haven’t suggested that you will be under suspicion of shooting Druze.” She had no need to be a reader of faces to realize that this possibility had never occurred to Jane Raytham. “I?” she said incredulously. “But how absurd! Why should I shoot? Oh, but that is impossible! It is impossible that anybody should think such a thing!” And, in spite of Leslie’s warning, she struggled erect. “You don’t think so, do you?” She was on her feet, peering into the girl’s face, her hand gripping Leslie’s wrist fiercely. “You don’t think so? I hated Druze! I hated him, hated him!” She stamped her foot in her fury. “You don’t know what it has meant to me--every morning to see his face, every minute liable to his presence. Do you realize what that meant? I had to school myself so that I didn’t shudder at the sight of him, and the mock humility of his ‘yes, my lady’ and ‘no, my lady’ that I might sit unmoved at my own table and face my own husband, and appear oblivious to the horrible masquerade----” She stopped, exhausted by her own vehemence. Leslie waited a moment and then: “What is Anthony Druze to you?” Lady Raytham stared at her. “To me--you mean---- What do you mean?” Suddenly she burst into a paroxysm of laughter. It was dreadful to see her. “Oh, you fool! You little fool! Can’t you guess? Don’t you know?” And then suddenly she ran out of the room. Leslie heard her bedroom door slam and the snap of the turning key and knew that her interview was ended. CHAPTER VIII. A SURPRISE FOR LESLIE It was two o’clock when a taxicab stopped in Severall Street, Lambeth, and a very weary girl alighted. The detective whom she had asked by telephone to meet her was waiting at the corner of the street and ran toward her. “You want Mrs. Inglethorne’s, don’t you, miss? The house is on the opposite side of the road.” He hurried across the street and knocked at a door. Twice and three times he knocked before a sash went up and the voice of Peter Dawlish asked: “Who is it?” He had hardly asked the question before he recognized the girl. “I’ll be down in a second!” But before he could descend, the landlady herself made an appearance. She was a little tremulous of voice, more than a little whining, when she recognized the familiar countenance of the detective. “Whatcher want? There’s nobody here except my young man lodger and he’s straight. A policeman recommended him.”