"Is Colonel Faversham at home?" asked Jimmy.

"Do you wish to see him!" said Carrissima.

"Well, yes," was the answer, "I do—rather particularly."

"Because he is not in the very best mood for a visitor," said
Carrissima. "At the present moment he is shut up in his smoking-room.
I give you a fair warning, Jimmy!"

"I think I shall have to risk it," he returned.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Carrissima. "How tremendously curious you make me! Although I'm entirely in the dark, I feel certain that important events are happening. You see, Jimmy, my father is constantly at Golfney Place—so are you! This morning he came home unusually early—actually with a large parcel in his hand. He had a face like ever so many thunder-clouds. Do you think there has been any sort of—of disagreement between Bridget and the colonel?"

"Why, yes," said Jimmy, "I fancy you've hit the mark!"

"I wish you wouldn't be so dreadfully mysterious," she answered. "Now, why can't you tell me what it is all about?"

He could not see his way to gratify her. Bridget had insisted that the engagement had remained a secret at Colonel Faversham's wish, and Jimmy had no wish to make things unpleasant for him at home. He had told Sybil, it was true, but probably he would not even have enlightened his sister if he had taken time for reflection.

"Do you think," asked Jimmy, instead of replying to Carrissima's question, "that Bridget would be likely to go abroad again?"

"Jimmy," she answered seriously, "wherever she may have gone, you will be wise to take my advice."

"What is that?"

"To make no attempt to follow her!"

Jimmy laughed at this, and reminded Carrissima of his wish to speak to Colonel Faversham. Somewhat reluctantly she accompanied him down-stairs again, and opened the door of the smoking-room, taking the precaution to make as much noise as possible with the handle.

Colonel Faversham looked the embodiment of dejection, when at last, followed by Jimmy, she entered his room. He was sitting in an easy-chair, leaning forward with his hands to his head. All his usual exuberance appeared to have left him; he looked quite old and feeble. Seeing Jimmy, he scowled fiercely, making no attempt to rise or to offer his hand.

"Good-morning, colonel," said the visitor cheerfully. "Sorry if I am disturbing you, but I wanted a few words, if you can spare a minute."

"A broad hint for me to go," cried Carrissima, backing towards the door, with the most painful curiosity.

"Well, what is it?" demanded Colonel Faversham, as soon as he was alone with Jimmy.

"I am going to ask you a straight question!" was the answer. "I have heard of your engagement——"

"Who the devil told you?" exclaimed Colonel Faversham, sitting suddenly erect.

"Well, you know," said Jimmy, "I imagine there was only one person who had it in her power to tell me."

"Bridget, you mean?"

"Yes," replied Jimmy.

"When was that?"

"Just after you left her yesterday morning."

Rising from his chair, Colonel Faversham seemed to pull himself together. He blew out his cheeks, put back his shoulders and fixed his eyeglass as if he wished to examine Jimmy more distinctly.

"I should like to know," he said, "what my engagement has to do with you!"

"Nothing in the world," returned Jimmy, "if it still exists. That is all I am anxious to hear—whether it does or not."

Colonel Faversham stood glaring into Jimmy's face. So it was true, as he had suspected, that he had been thrown over for the benefit of this confounded fellow, who had the audacity to catechize him! Well, the battle was to the young! Colonel Faversham set it down to that. He must be growing old, hang it all! and here was Jimmy Clynesworth, whom he had nursed as a small boy, civil enough, as far as that went, but probably laughing in his sleeve, as those who win may.

"Jimmy," said the colonel, with a chastened and rather pathetic air, "I tell you what it is. I've been infernally badly treated. No use to mince matters. I've been jilted, sir. Jilted!"

"I suppose I may gather from that," suggested Jimmy, striving to keep anything resembling elation from his voice, "that, as far as you're concerned, Bridget is free——"

"Free!" cried Colonel Faversham. "Any woman can easily be free who attaches no value to her most solemn vows. Free! Good gracious! How can a man bind such a wench?"

"Thank you," said Jimmy, turning towards the door, "that's all I wanted to hear!"

His position did not appear very enviable, because while he could not tolerate any abuse of Bridget, to tell the truth it was impossible to say a word in her defence.

"One minute—one minute, Jimmy!" cried Colonel Faversham. "The more I think of it, the more extraordinary this visit of yours seems! As a boy you always had plenty of cheek! Between ourselves! You seem to know a good deal. I hope to goodness you haven't blabbed to Carrissima!"

"About your engagement, do you mean?"

"Yes, yes," said the colonel impatiently.

"I haven't said a word. In fact, she has not the remotest idea of anything of the kind."

"Well, that's a blessing," was the answer, and Jimmy went away, getting out of the house without seeing Carrissima again. The moment he reached Upper Grosvenor Street he inquired for Sybil, and being told she was in her own room, mounted the stairs several treads at a time.

"May I come in?" he asked, tapping at her door.

"Whatever is the matter now, Jimmy?" exclaimed Sybil, throwing it open.

"Well, it has been a wonderful morning," he explained. "I have got a free hand. Bridget has thrown old Faversham over."

"My dear," said Sybil, "how extremely barefaced!"

"I have seen him," Jimmy continued. "There is nothing on earth in my way. All I have to do is to find her, and that won't take many days."

While he stood outside Sybil's bedroom door, explaining how he had heard the news of Bridget's departure from Golfney Place, his sister underwent the sorest temptation of her life. Surely no situation could be more tantalizing. If it were not for the solemn promise she had made to Carrissima, how easy it would prove to keep Jimmy from the pursuit which might end in his ruin!

Although he remained so strangely uninfluenced by the knowledge of Bridget's engagement to Colonel Faversham, her simultaneous intrigue with Mark Driver could scarcely fail to bring Jimmy to his senses. For the present, however, Sybil tried to hope that there might be more difficulty in running his quarry to earth than he anticipated. She might indeed be hiding somewhere perplexingly close at hand; and most likely Mark held the clue!

Jimmy lost no time in setting to work in earnest. In the first place, he inserted advertisements in the halfpenny evening papers and such of their morning contemporaries as made a special feature of betting news. These he thought would be most in favour amongst taxi-cab drivers, and, of course, the important thing was to discover the man who had driven "a lady and her luggage from No. 5, Golfney Place" that fateful afternoon.

Not content with this, Jimmy motored to Sandbay, and stopping at a stationer's shop, succeeded in purchasing a local Directory. In this he found the name of "Dobson, the Misses," who lived at No. 8, Downside Road. The house was named "Fairbank." Thither Jimmy drove at once, and few thoroughfares could have had a more sedately retired appearance. A wide, gravelled roadway, smoothly rolled, with red-brick villas all precisely alike on one side, and yellow-brick villas, equally uniform, on the other.

There must have been fewer than the average number of children in the neighbourhood, and these must have been unusually silent and well conducted. Such dogs as there were always went out with a lead, and often wearing neat little home-made coats, with a leather strap instead of a collar.

On almost every gate a metal label was affixed: "No hawkers or street musicians." In the most sedate of the red-brick villas with the neatest front garden, lived the Misses Dobson. If any one ever ventured to speak of them in their hearing as the "Miss Dobsons" he was certain to be corrected. In truth, "The Misses Dobson" seemed to describe them far more accurately.

The difference between their ages was only eighteen months, and casual observers assumed that they were twins. They invariably dressed alike, in a fashion which had become out of date in London several years before. They never went out separately, and in order that the same ideas should penetrate their minds at the same moment, one of the pair read aloud while the other sewed and listened.

Well-to-do in the world, they were exceedingly kind to the poor, and they had never succeeded in grasping Bridget's reasons for refusing to accept their hospitality. This afternoon they were sitting together in their superlatively neat drawing-room, and Miss Dobson was knitting while Miss Frances was reading a novel from the circulating library. In the middle of chapter four they were astonished to hear the unwonted sound of a motor-car, and when the sentence was finished they both rose and walked to the window.

There stood a large red car, with a chauffeur in dark-grey livery with a light-brown fur rug round his knees. Before their astonishment permitted the remark that some one must have stopped at the wrong house, the door opened and the most demure parlour-maid in England stood nervously holding the handle.

"A gentleman in a motor-car," said Selina.

"I think," answered Miss Dobson, "that he must have made a mistake in the number."

"He asked for Miss Dobson," said Selina. "Not knowing the name, I left him in the hall."

"Quite right," returned Miss Frances.

"Name o' Clynesworth," said Selina.

"Perhaps," suggested Miss Dobson, "he wishes to sell something."

"A motor-car!" remarked Miss Frances.

"I suppose we ought to receive him," said her sister, and accordingly Jimmy was conducted to the drawing-room, where he at once began to make an almost abject apology.

"My only excuse," he concluded, "is that I have the honour to call myself a friend of Miss Rosser's."

"Our dearest niece," murmured Miss Dobson.

"You may know," said Jimmy, who had scarcely ever felt quite so nervous in his life, "that Bridget has been living at No. 5, Golfney Place!"

"Extremely unsuitable on all accounts," answered Miss Dobson.

"Extremely," said Miss Frances.

"As she left her rooms the day before yesterday," Jimmy explained, "I thought it possible she might have come to you."

"We sincerely wish she had," said Miss Dobson.

"Sincerely," said Miss Frances.

"You may think it is rather strange that I should be pursuing Bridget in this way," suggested Jimmy.

"We do," said Miss Dobson.

"My object," continued Jimmy, "is to ask her to marry me!"

"Will you kindly take a chair," cried Miss Dobson, and they all looked about as if to make certain there was nothing in the way, and then sat down. "The present," Miss Dobson added, "may not be the most suitable occasion to inquire concerning your eligibility. My niece is a sweet girl."

"I entirely agree with you," said Jimmy.

"A little impulsive, it may be," said Miss Dobson.

"Perhaps, a little," murmured Miss Frances.

"But exceedingly good to her father after our poor sister's death."

"Very, very good," said Miss Frances, and both sisters blinked their eyes as Jimmy rose to say "good-bye." He was, however, not to make his escape just yet. The Misses Dobson were obviously disturbed in mind. They could not tolerate the idea of Bridget's whereabouts remaining unknown, and all Jimmy's coolness and assurance were required to restore them to anything resembling tranquillity.

He left the house with a feeling that the scent of lavender must be still clinging to his clothes, and the next morning found him at Crowborough. There, however, he could obtain no news of Bridget, and now he began to wonder whether it was probable she had gone to Paris, where she had lived with David Rosser during the last years of his life. It was on Monday morning that Sybil saw Jimmy in the act of parting from a stranger at the door.

"Who was your visitor?" she inquired, having waited in the dining-room for the purpose.

"A man named Winchester—a private detective," said Jimmy.

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Sybil, "how sincerely I wish you would let
Miss Rosser go her own way!"

"Haven't I succeeded yet," demanded Jimmy, "in making you understand that her way will always be mine?"

"And yet you know how horridly she treated poor Colonel Faversham, Jimmy. You have always insisted on truth and honesty before anything——"

"Now I only insist," said Jimmy, "that Bridget shall become my wife."

At this Sybil grew reckless.

"Jimmy," she cried, "it is really quite impossible."

"Why?" he demanded.

"My dear, I scarcely like to say the words, but she knew Mark Driver long before she knew you."

"Well, I hope she will see a good deal of old Mark in the future also," answered Jimmy. "You force me to break my word," said Sybil, with considerable emotion. "Carrissima will never forgive me. I am sure she won't. But I really cannot keep silence while you go to destruction. I really can't. I promised I would never breathe a syllable——"

"Would you mind," urged Jimmy, "breathing it quickly!"

"There has been an—an understanding between Miss Rosser and Mark from the very first," said Sybil.

"Oh, you mustn't talk foolishness," returned Jimmy.

"Carrissima saw them——"

"What in the world did she see?"

"She happened to go to Golfney Place unexpectedly the afternoon before Miss Rosser left," Sybil explained. "She saw the girl in—in Mark's arms. Jimmy, he was kissing her; actually kissing her, and all the time she must have been engaged to Colonel Faversham."

"Nonsense," said Jimmy; "I don't believe a word of it."

"Do you imagine that Carrissima could possibly tell me an untruth?" demanded Sybil. "She was half beside herself when I met her, or she would never have said a word."

"Now," suggested Jimmy, "you have hit the explanation. Carrissima was beside herself. Of course," he added, "I shall clear the matter up, but I tell you, to begin with, I don't believe a word of it."

"How Carrissima managed to carry it off," said Sybil, "seems wonderful to me."

"A wonderful story altogether," returned Jimmy.

"Neither Mark nor—nor his companion had the slightest idea they were discovered," said Sybil.

"Oh, then Carrissima didn't tackle the fellow!"

"How could she?" asked Sybil. "You see, she had no actual right to complain! Mark Driver, I dare say, would consider himself free to—to kiss any woman he pleased."

"Anyhow," said Jimmy, with all the assurance in the world, "he didn't kiss Bridget."

"Oh, how can you be so blind!" exclaimed his sister.

"When other people see so much," he answered, "what can be more desirable?"

"Well," said Sybil, with tears in her eyes, "I have told you what
Carrissima saw, and naturally she drew her own conclusions."

"What were they?" asked Jimmy, thrusting his hands deep in his jacket pockets.

"You are bound," Sybil explained, "to take into consideration what had gone before. Only a few hours earlier Mark told Carrissima that he hadn't seen Miss Rosser for some weeks. He said he never wished to see her again. Then in face of that, Carrissima went to Golfney Place, and there was the woman in his arms."

"Well," cried Jimmy, "we shall hear what Mark has to say about it."

"My dear," said Sybil nervously, "I do hope and trust you won't get me into trouble. I should never have uttered a word if it were not for your good."

"Any one would imagine," was the answer, "that I had been wrapped in cotton-wool all my life. I suppose I should have been if you could have managed it. Well, I am off to Weymouth Street at once," added Jimmy.