"Why not? She does not know the extent of your knowledge; she has not the remotest idea that you have been helping to foil her schemes. Next time she will meet you as if nothing had happened." Geoffrey thought of Marion and was silent. That one so pure and sweet should be mixed up with a creature like that was horrible. Ralph Ravenspur rose with a yawn. He seemed to have lapsed into his wooden state. He felt his way down the big flagged hall toward the staircase. "We can do nothing more," he said. "I am going to bed. Good-night." The door closed and then Geoffrey was free to act. He could go down into the vault and bring Marion up. But first he would try to ascertain if she was in her room. He passed up the stairs and along the corridor. Outside Marion's door he coughed gently. The door opened and Marion stood there clad in a fair white wrap, with her glorious hair hanging free over her shoulders. Her eyes were full of tears. "Geoff," she whispered. "Geoff, dear Geoff." She fell into his arms, and pressed her lips long and clingingly to his. Her hole frame was quivering with mingled love and emotion. Then she snatched herself away from his embrace and, with the single whispered word, "To-morrow," closed the door behind her. CHAPTER XXIII MARION EXPLAINS A brilliant sunshine poured into the terrace room where the Ravenspurs usually breakfasted. An innovation in the way of French windows led on to a tessellated pavement bordered with flowers on either side and ending in the terrace overlooking the sea. A fresh breeze came from the ocean; the thunder of the surf was subdued to a drone. In the flowers a number of bees were busy, bees whose hives were placed against the side of the house. They were Vera's bees and there were two hives of them. Vera attended to them herself; they knew her and she was wont to declare that in no circumstances would they do her any harm. That was why, as Geoffrey dryly put it, she never got stung more than once a week. "I believe one has been arguing with you now," Geoffrey laughed. He was standing in the window as he spoke. He and Vera were the first two down. The girl was on the pavement gravely contemplating the palm of her right hand. "No, indeed," she said. "And, anyway, it was my own fault." "Irish," Geoffrey cried. "That makes the second since Monday. Let me see." He took the little pink palm in his own brown hands. "I can't see the spot," he said. "Does it hurt much?" "A mere pin prick, dear. I suppose you can get innoculated against that sort of thing. I mean that you can be stung and stung until it has no effect at all." "Even by bees that know you and never do you any harm," Geoffrey laughed. "But I dare say you are right. Five years ago when we had that plague of wasps Stenmore, the keeper, and myself destroyed over a hundred wasps' nests in one season. I must have been stung nearly a thousand times. After the first score I never noticed it; was not so bad as the touch of a nettle."