Even while chatting, and while the train tore through a bleak landscape almost blotted out with rain, Leah wondered who had written the letter. Not Demetrius, certainly, although the calligraphy would have caused an expert to commit perjury. Aksakoff was more clever with tongue than pen, so Leah fell back on Helfmann as a possible forger. Assuredly she did not believe that he was a medical man, and his fortunate presence at the needed hour argued a carefully laid plot. The fiacre probably drove to St. Lazare, and thence Helfmann had no doubt personally conducted his patient to Havre to be shipped on board the Petrovitch yacht. Now the boat was kicking her way through the grey northern seas, and Demetrius, in possession of his senses, was looking forward to a forced passage across the Urals. An unpleasant journey at this time of the year, but needful for men who wanted more than was good for them. And, thank God, this particular man was out of her life for ever. While offering up the hasty prayer Lady Jim touched the peacock's feather, tucked away in her pocket, and felt that life really was worth living, when one knew how to dispose of disagreeable people. Perhaps the prayer addressed to a Deity other than the fetish made the domestic god sulky, but he, or it, certainly did not expedite Leah's journey to Curzon Street. For two weary days wind and rain, stormy waves and over-cautious officials, detained the travellers in Calais. A hurricane that would have done credit to the South Seas made the Channel impassible, and the waves that Britannia is supposed to rule rebelled furiously against her white cliffs. Leah, inconceivably bored, watched the gusty hours through streaming panes, and wondered if the gale extended to the Mediterranean. If so, the ducal yacht with Frith and his father on board must be having a pitch-and-toss time of the worst. The Duke was no hardened mariner, and uncomfortable motions prolonged to excess might make a man of his age so ill that he would---- Here Leah's vivid imagination produced a shudder. She did not wish the kindly old Duke to die of exhaustion; not that she cared overmuch for him, but Frith succeeding to unlimited money-bags would be less easy to manage in the important matter of occasional cheques. The insurance money would not last for ever with one of her tastes, and after all--since this greedy Captain Strange would insist upon his dues--she had only twenty-nine thousand pounds. Then Jim would want ready money, and his demands--she knew him of old--would probably be shameless. Of course, seeing that, on the face of it, he was involved deeper than she was in a shady conspiracy, he could be told to mind his own business and marry Señorita Fajardo, if desirous of being kept like a gentleman. But to avoid unnecessary trouble it was probable that she would have to send him a trifle. How dreadful it was to think that a single shilling of that hardly-earned money should slip through