"It was none of my seeking," retorted Pratt. "I gained the knowledge by accident." "You're giving yourself away," said Nesta. "Or you've some mental twist or defect which prevents you from seeing things straight. It's not how you got your knowledge, but the use you're making of it that's the important thing! You're using it to force my mother to----" "Excuse me!" interrupted Pratt with a queer smile. "It's you who don't see things straight. I'm using my knowledge to protect--all of you. Let your mind go back to what was said at first--to what I said at first. I said that I'd discovered a secret which, if revealed, would ruin your mother and injure--you! So it would--more than ever, now. So, you see, in keeping it, I'm taking care, not only of her interests, but of--yours!" Nesta rose. She realized that there was no more to be said--or done. And Pratt rose, too, and looked at her almost appealingly. "I wish you'd try to see things as I've put them, Miss Mallathorpe," he said. "I don't bear malice against your mother for that scheme she contrived--I'm willing to put it clear out of my head. Why not accept things as they are? I'll keep that secret for ever--no one shall ever know about it. Why not be friends, now--why not shake hands?" He held out his hand as he spoke. But Nesta drew back. "No!" she said. "My opinion is just what it was when I came here." Before Pratt could move she had turned swiftly to the door and let herself out, and in another minute she was amongst the crowds in the street below. For a few minutes she walked in the direction of Robson's offices, but when she had nearly reached them, she turned, and went deliberately to those of Eldrick & Pascoe. CHAPTER XVI A HEADQUARTERS CONFERENCE By the time she had been admitted to Eldrick's private room, Nesta had regained her composure; she had also had time to think, and her present action was the result of at any rate a part of her thoughts. She was calm and collected enough when she took the chair which the solicitor drew forward. "I called on you for two reasons, Mr. Eldrick," she said. "First, to thank you for your kindness and thoughtfulness at the time of my brother's death, in sending your clerk to help in making the arrangements." "Very glad he was of any assistance, Miss Mallathorpe," answered Eldrick. "I thought, of course, that as he had been on the spot, as it were, when the accident happened, he could do a few little things----" "He was very useful in that way," said Nesta. "And I was very much obliged to him. But the second reason for my call is--I want to speak to you about him." "Yes?" responded Eldrick. He had already formed some idea as to what was in his visitor's mind, and he was secretly glad of the opportunity of talking to her. "About Pratt, eh? What about him, Miss Mallathorpe?" "He was with you for some years, I believe?" she asked. "A good many years," answered Eldrick. "He came to us as office-boy, and was head-clerk when he left us."