“Don’t say anything about it, Betty,” he urged. “Just ask her in, won’t you, when you get upstairs.” “And you?” “I could do a turn on steel spikes,” he laughed. “Your arm?” “Right as rain. It’s nothing at all.” Doris accepted the situation without a word. Indeed she was numbed with the fatigue of strained nerves. The swift rush of incident since Betty’s London dinner, with its rapid alternations of hope and fear, had left her bewildered and helpless. But it was the interview with Cyril tonight that had plunged her into the dark abyss of despair. She had tried so hard to believe in him, but he would do nothing to take away the weight that had been dragging her down further and further from the light. A new kind of love had come to her, born of the new Cyril who had won her over by the sheer force of a personality, the existence of which she had not dreamed. A short time ago she had wanted to see him awake--a firebrand--and she had had her wish, for she had kindled to his touch like tinder. But tonight, in her utter weariness, it seemed as though her spirit was charred, burnt to a cinder, like the package of papers in the grate in the gun-room, destroyed, as the secret message had been, in the great game that Cyril was playing. She undressed slowly, listening for any sounds that might come from the room next door, but the only sign she had of him was the familiar smell of his pipe tobacco which came through the cracks and key-hole. A little later Betty Heathcote came in prepared for what she called a “back hair talk,” but found her guest so unresponsive that at last she went into her own room and bed. Doris lay for a while watching the line of light under Cyril’s door, wondering what he was doing and what the night was to bring forth. One memory persisted in the chaos of the night’s events. Cyril didn’t know the contents of the papers and yet he had commanded her to burn them. The thought quieted her, and at last she saw the light in his room go out, then, after a time, in spite of her weariness, she slept. * * * * * She awakened, trembling with terror, listening for she knew not what. And then as her wits slowly came to her, she was aware of the sounds which had awakened her. They were suppressed, secret, and strange, but none the less terrible, the shuffling of feet, hoarse whispers, and the creaking of straining furniture. She sat upright, slipped to the floor quickly, and, getting into the dressing-gown at the foot of the bed, stood for a moment in the middle of the room, her heart beating wildly. Then with quick resolution she moved swiftly to Betty Heathcote’s room and, after assuring herself that her hostess still slept, closed the door softly and passed the bolt.