Trix turned from him with a quick jerk of her head. The baize door outside had swung to and fro. Tommy heard it too; his eye brightened; there was no intruder whom he would not have welcomed, from the tax-collector to the bull of Bashan; he would have preferred the latter as being presumably the more violent. 'There, somebody's coming! I told you it was no place to discuss things of this kind, Mrs. Trevalla.' 'Of all cowardly creatures, men are----' began Trix. A low, gently crooned song reached them from the passage. The words were not very distinct--Peggy sang to please herself, not to inform the world--but the air was soothing and the tones tender. Yet neither of them seemed moved to artistic enjoyment. 'Peggy, by Jove!' whispered Tommy in a fearful voice. 'Now we can have the truth,' said Trix. She spoke almost like a virago; but when she sat at the table, her chin between her hands, she turned on Tommy such a pitiful, harassed face that he could have cried with her. In came Peggy; she had been to one or two places since Danes Inn, but the glory and gaiety of her visit there hung about her still. She entered gallantly. Then she saw Tommy--and Tommy only at first. 'Oh!' she exclaimed. 'Are you waiting for me?' Her joy fled; that was strange, since it was Tommy. But there he sat, and sat frowning. It was the day of reckoning! 'I've--I've been meaning to come and see you,' Peggy went on hastily, 'and--and explain.' 'I must ask you to explain to me first, Peggy.' This from a most forbidding, majestic Trix, hitherto unperceived. She had summoned her forces again; the pleading pitifulness was gone from her face. Tommy reproached himself for a sneak and a coward, but for the life of him he could not help thinking, 'Now they can fight it out together!' At first Peggy was relieved; a _tête-à-tête_ was avoided. She did not dream that her secret was found out. Who would have thought of Fricker's taste for a good story or of that last kick of malice in Beaufort Chance? 'Oh, there you are too, Trix! So glad to find you. I've only run in for just a minute to change my frock before I go out to dinner with the----' 'It's only a quarter to seven. I want to ask you a question first.' Trix's chilliness was again most pronounced and unmistakable. Peggy glanced at Tommy; a sullen and wilfully uninforming shrug of the shoulders was all that she got. Peggy had enjoyed the day very much; she was young enough to expect the evening to be like it; she protested vigorously against this sort of atmosphere. 'What's the matter with you both?' she cried. Trix came straight to the point this time. She would have doubted Beaufort if he had brought gifts in his hand; she did not doubt him when he came with a knife. 'Whose money did you give Mr. Fricker to buy me off?' she asked. She held out her letter to Peggy.