“Weren’t you surprised, Loo, when Archie told us this morning about Mr. Gethryn really being Colonel Gethryn? And all those wonderful things he did in the war with the Secret What-d’you-call-it?” “No,” said Lucia absently. Then hurried mendaciously to correct herself. “Yes, I mean. I was surprised. Very much!” She felt a hot flush mount to her cheeks. This did not lesson her annoyance with Lucia Lemesurier. Came a silence, broken at last by the younger sister. “I,” she said, with a gallant attempt at frivolity, “am going to repair to my chamber, there to remove traces of these ignoble tears.” And she hurried from the room. Lucia stared a moment at the closed door; then sank back into the softness of the couch. Her thoughts cannot be described with any clarity. They were, as may be imagined, again a jumble. One moment she would smile at some secret thought; another would find her tense, pale, vivid imagination of horrors to come to her sister and her sister’s lover possessing her. Would everything, as she had so confidently said, be “all right”? Would miracles indeed be worked by this—by Colonel Gethryn? How absurd the “Colonel” sounded! Colonels, surely, were purple, fat, and white-moustached, not tall, lean, “hawky” persons with disturbing green eyes. She was startled from her reverie. Had she heard anything? Yes, there it was again—a tapping on the window. The thunder had stopped now, and the sound came sharply through the soft hissing of the rain. There is always something sinister in a knocking upon a window. With a jump one exchanges the dull safety of ordinary life for the uncomfortable excitement of the sensational novel. Lucia, her nerves wrecked by the emotions of the past week and further jarred by the noise of the storm, sprang to her feet and stood straining her eyes, wide, startled and black as velvet shadows, towards the French windows. The tapping came again, insistent. She took hold of her courage, crossed the room, and flung them open. Anthony stepped across the sill. He was, as he had left Mr. Lucas ten minutes before, without hat or mackintosh. He seemed, as indeed he was, serenely unconscious of his appearance. But the pallor of fatigue, the blazing eyes, the labouring breath, the hatless head shining with wet, the half-sodden clothes, all had their effect upon Lucia. It had been for her an evening of horror. Now, surely, here was news of worse. Her eyes questioned him. Her heart hammered at her breast. Speech she found impossible. Anthony bowed. “Enter Fairy Godmother,” he said. “Preserve absolute calm. The large Mr. Deacon is a free man. Repentant policemen are busy scouring his ’scutcheon. I think it not unlikely that he will be here within an hour or so.” Lucia was left without breath. “Oh—why—what——” she gasped. He smiled at her. “Please preserve absolute calm. My nerves aren’t what they were. What do we do next? Tell little sister, I imagine.” “You—I—I——” she stammered, and rushed from the room.