The figure of a man emerged from the library, hesitated, and then approached the hat-rack in the hall. Prudence watched the man while he divested himself of his cap and overcoat and shoes before going quietly upstairs, shoes in hand, to his room. She stood amazed and surveyed these doings through the narrow opening of the partially closed door. Intuition assured her that these mysterious proceedings were not connected in any way with herself. Whatever it was that had taken William abroad it could have no association with her concerns. William had shown as furtively anxious a desire to avoid detection as she had; he wore the air of a person engaged in nefarious practices. The hall was not sufficiently light to reveal the expression of worried annoyance on his face; she recognised only the familiar outline of his form, and noted the secretiveness of his movements, and the care with which, in his stockinged feet, he had crept upstairs. Abruptly some words of Bobby's, uttered half jestingly years ago, recurred in an illuminating flash across her mind: "You are taking it too much for granted that the old boy's life is lived on the surface." Perhaps after all William had a life apart from the factory and the home, a life which he did not choose to reveal before the world. It was strangely disconcerting to discover a person whom one had believed hitherto to have walked always circumspectly through life, stealing furtively about the house in the middle of the night like a burglar in search of plunder. In the surprise of this amazing development in the night's proceedings, Prudence lost sight of her own fears and became wonderfully clear-headed and reliant. The responsibility of her present action weighed less heavily with her. She unfastened the window quietly, and without haste, and stepped out on to the gravelled path. Immediately Steele was beside her. It seemed to her little short of miraculous that William should be abroad and have failed to discover his presence. Steele, as a matter of fact, was alive to William's nocturnal prowling, and had concealed himself from sight among the shrubs. He came forward now quickly and with caution, took Prudence's hand, and led her from the garden. "Some one's about," he said. "William," she whispered back. "We only missed coming face to face in the hall by the fraction of a second." "I know." He gripped her hand tightly. "When I saw him pass round the corner of the house I made sure you'd run into him. What's he doing, anyway?" "I don't know. He was so anxious to avoid detection that it was easy to evade him." She laughed nervously. "I wonder what would have happened if I had run into him?" They passed through the gate side by side and came out on the moonlit road. Steele drew his companion into the shadow of the wall and caught her in his arms and kissed her.