Not a word, of course, was spoken before Betty of the new light, or the new darkness, whichsoever you will, that had been cast on the tragedy of Althea. I could not do otherwise than agree with the direct-spoken old lady who had at once correlated the adventure in Carlisle with the plunge into the Wellingsford Canal. And so did Sir Anthony. They were very brave, however, the little man and Edith, in their dinner-talk with Betty. But I saw that the past fortnight had aged them both by a year or more. They had been stabbed in their honour, their trust, and their faith. It was a secret terror that stalked at their side by day and lay stark at their side by night. It was only when the ladies had left us that Sir Anthony referred to the subject. "I suppose you know that young Randall Holmes has bolted." "So his mother informed me to-day." He pricked his ears. "Does she know where he has gone to?" "No," said I. "What did I tell you?" said Sir Anthony. I held up my glass of port to the light and looked through it. "A lot of damfoolishness, my dear old friend," said I. He grew angry. A man doesn't like to be coldly called a damfool at his own table. He rose on his spurs, in his little red bantam way. Was I too much of an idiot to see the connection? As soon as the Carlisle business became known, this young scoundrel flies the country. Couldn't I see an inch before my blind nose? Forbearing to question this remarkable figure of speech, I asked him how so confidential a matter could have become known. "Everything gets known in this infernal little town," he retorted. "That's where you're mistaken," said I. "Half everything gets known--the unimportant half. The rest is supplied by malicious or prejudiced invention." We discussed the question after the futile way of men until we went into the drawing-room, where Betty played and sang to us until it was time to go home. Marigold was about to lift me into the two-seater when Betty, who had been lurking in her car a little way off, ran forward. "Would it bore you if I came in for a quarter of an hour?" "Bore me, my dear?" said I. "Of course not." So a short while afterwards we were comfortably established in my library. "You rang me up to-day about Phyllis Gedge." "I did," said I. She lit a cigarette and seated herself on the fender-stool. She has an unconscious knack of getting into easy, loose-limbed attitudes. I said admiringly: "Do you know you're a remarkably well-favoured young person?" And as soon as I said it, I realised what a tremendous factor Betty was in my circumscribed life. What could I do without her sweet intimacy? If Willie Connor's Territorial regiment, like so many others, had been ordered out to India, and she had gone with him, how blank would be the days and weeks and months! I thanked God for granting me her graciousness. She smiled and blew me a kiss. "That's very gratifying to know," she said. "But it has nothing to do with Phyllis."