"I understand as much as is necessary," Matheson replied. "I'm on watch now. If any ill results follow upon your mischievous activities you can regard me as an enemy. I'll track you down, and fix the thing on you." Holman rang the bell at his elbow sharply. "I really can't waste time while you talk nonsense," he said. "Your abuse of me is absurd. If it were less ridiculous I should resent it more effectively." He turned back to the desk as the door opened to admit the clerk, and, speaking over his shoulder, curtly directed the astonished youth to show the visitor out Matheson, when he emerged from the winding intricacies of the airless passage into the sunlight, had a feeling that he had not so much closed that episode as broken an insincere friendship and started an open feud. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. The meeting with Holman and the latter's reference to the girl of the beach brought Matheson's memory with a swing back to Brenda and his promise to her. In all these weeks he had not thought of her twice, nor looked at the address she had given him at his request. He took it out when he got back to his rooms, and considered the wisdom of writing to her in a calm, detached way, and with a view to possible developments. Finally he decided that he would write, and did so, asking for news of her. He despatched his letter, and waited in a state of curious uncertainty for her reply. When the reply did not come this uncertainty as to the real state of his wishes yielded to a very genuine disappointment. It was no longer a matter of indifference to him; he wanted to hear from her, wanted her friendship. Some months later, after he was back in Cape Town, his own letter was returned to him through the post office, with the unsatisfactory information pencilled upon it. "Gone away, address not known." He had waited too long; it was not possible now to get into touch with her. He was sorry for this. He found himself wondering why she had left Mrs Graham, where she had gone. He worried about her. It was not easy to put his anxiety into words, but he had a feeling, strengthened possibly by the fact that she had left no address behind, that the loss of her former post was in the nature of a disaster. It couldn't, he reflected uneasily, be consequent on that moonlight walk... She had so feared being late, and he had displayed impatience at having to hasten. Perhaps after all she had been late... It was beastly unjust that a little thing like that should have such disproportionate results. He wondered why women didn't combine and insist upon fairer conditions. Even a companion should be privileged to count certain hours of the day her own.