Leslie Chermside walked away from the inquest like a man in a dream. It was only a few steps to the house where he lodged, and he at once sought the seclusion of his own sitting-room—a shady apartment with long windows opening on to a cool verandah, whence there was a distant view of the headland at the river's mouth and of the sea beyond.

"At any rate, I do not think that I am an object of suspicion—yet," he murmured with a bitter laugh when he had stood staring from one of the windows with unseeing eyes for some minutes. "And, as I more than half expected, Travers Nugent did not disclose my appointment with that wretched little scally-wag."

Turning away, he lit his pipe and flung himself into a long chair to review the situation. At the best his position was a perilous one, and he was very conscious of the necessity of not lulling himself into a false security because of that day's immunity. But he had at least obtained a reprieve, and for the present he was free to concentrate all his energies on keeping watch and ward over Violet. That Travers Nugent had not abandoned his compact with the Maharajah because of his own defection he felt sure. For, looked at by the light of the event of that afternoon, the inactivity of Bhagwan Singh's agent seemed ominously sinister—the more so as it was entirely problematical.

If Nugent had played the obvious card of revealing what he knew about the meeting on the marsh arranged between Levison and Leslie, the latter would almost certainly have been arrested, and so had his wings clipped for further opposition to Nugent's plans. But this obvious and drastic course would have laid Nugent's flank open to the counter-attack of full confession by a desperate man, and he had been far too cunning to run that risk. No, he must be working by subtler and more tortuous methods towards the attainment of his purpose—the embarkation of Violet Maynard on board the turbine yacht Cobra.

Leslie gave his antagonist full credit for cold calculation of all the chances. He was under no illusion as to the apparent complaisance with which his rebellion had been accepted, and as to Nugent's quiescence in the matter of Levison's murder. He was assured that he was only sitting there at liberty because he was of more use to Mr. Travers Nugent in the freedom of that comfortable room than he would have been in a cell at the police-station charged with murder.

Rising from his chair with a sudden impulse, Leslie knocked the ashes out of his pipe. As always happens to the man in love, he had persuaded himself that the wisest course to pursue was the one which jumped with his inclinations.

"I will force his hand," he said half aloud. "I will spend all the time I can with Violet, and I will begin at once. My constant presence will be the best safeguard she can have."

Mounting his bicycle, he made short work of the two miles to the lodge gates of the Manor House, and as luck would have it whom should he see coming towards him along the drive but Violet herself. She was looking deliciously cool and dainty in a coat and skirt of white drill, which set off her tall, graceful figure to perfection. Leslie's pulses quickened at sight of the pleased surprise and heightened colour in her face as she saw him.

"I didn't expect you to-day," she said, when he had jumped off his machine. "I thought that you would be kept by that horrid affair in the town, but I suppose you couldn't shed any light on it."

"It was soon over—adjourned for a week," replied Leslie. "As I was able to get away, I saw no reason why this should be a day entirely wasted."

Violet shot a glance at him from under the deep-fringed lids which had given the critics their cue for their ravings over her Academy picture. There was a warmth in the tone of the neatly-turned little speech that had been lacking in their intercourse of late. The millionaire's daughter had never disguised from herself the singular attraction which this sun-browned, well-knit young soldier from India had for her from the moment of their first meeting a month ago. And he had begun to woo her so bravely and openly, only to slacken his ardour after a week into an indifference which was almost insult after such warm beginnings.

No woman of spirit cares to be treated like goods sent out "on approval"—to be analytically inspected and then cast aside as not quite up to the mark. Especially if she happens to be the acknowledged beauty of the London season, and so lavishly dowered as to have had half the bachelor peerage at her feet. It speaks wonders, therefore, for the efficiency as a lover which Leslie Chermside had shown when he wasn't in love, that now, when he was, Violet should have behaved as she did.

"Let us go and be lazy on that seat by the sundial in the rose garden," she said, with a smile of invitation.

It was all that Leslie asked for—to be near her, to worship her, to feel her gracious presence, and, above all, by his unceasing watchfulness, to avert the peril of the steamer with the giant horse-power lurking thirty miles away along the coast. That was all that was in his mind as he wheeled his bicycle at her side over the turf that lay between the drive and the rosery. But half an hour amid the late blooms of the old world pleasaunce was to alter all that modest scheme. Leslie Chermside had made the mistake of reckoning without heed to the power that had them in thrall—the mighty power of love.

Neither of them ever knew how it came about. When they first sat down there was a shy constraint between them that seemed to hold them apart. They talked at random of trifles, with an obvious effort at searching for subjects. Violet even referred to the inquest on Levison, though in such a manner as to show that she plainly took only a superficial interest in it. It made Leslie shudder to hear her touch so lightly on a matter in which, though she was not aware of it, she was so nearly concerned.

Gradually and imperceptibly the awkward attempt at making conversation ceased, and the silence that supervened was threatening to become more awkward still, when Violet said suddenly:

"I believe that your heart is in India, Mr. Chermside—anywhere but in Ottermouth. You always—latterly at least—seem to me to be living in the past, or, perhaps, in the future. When your yacht is ready for sea, I suppose that you will lose no time in going back to the East?"

Leslie started, and came back to earth. "If you only knew the price I paid to get out of India you would not say that," he answered gravely. "And I am afraid that you are incorrect in your other surmises, Miss Maynard. I am neither living in a past which has nothing to recommend it, or in a future which is not alluring. As a matter of fact, I am just drifting—and revelling in the present."

He did not look at her as he spoke. He was staring straight before him at a trellis arch groaning under a weight of crimson rambler roses, but at the suggestion of trouble in his voice the girl swayed nearer to him.

"I wish you would be as frank with me as I am with you," she said. "A woman's sympathy counts for much sometimes. Forgive me for saying that you puzzle me, and one isn't puzzled where one isn't interested. You don't convey the impression of a man with a discreditable career behind him, and from the accepted accounts of your position your prospects are assured from a worldly point of view. A month ago I thought—I hoped—that we were going to be friends. We had begun to exchange confidences in a mild sort of way. Will you not confide in me now more fully, and tell me if there is anything in which I can help?"

In that moment, listening to her sweet proffer of womanly aid, Leslie suffered the most exquisite torture. This was the girl whom he had lightly condemned to a fate worse than death—a fate which he had pledged himself to compass by deceitfully gaining her love. He turned and looked at her, and he knew that the priceless guerdon which he had played for as a mere counter in a disgraceful game had been won. And now that it was his—now that he valued it for its own sake more than all the treasures in the world—he could not take it. His reawakened sense of honour forbade him to think of such desecration. How could he, wastrel and pauper, have aspired to this queenly maiden, even if his soul had not been soiled by the memory of his infamous bargain?

"I am not worthy one passing thought from you—still less to give you my confidence," he faltered. "Confidence!" he went on, with something like a groan of anguish. "Why, I would rather lose the power of speech for ever than befoul your ears with the record of my shame."

Her eyes, like twin pools of shining radiance, were searching his face. "That is for me to judge," she said softly. "But I do not, on second thoughts, ask you for your confidence, Mr. Chermside. I have faith in my instinct. I do not believe that you have done anything really base—whatever, perhaps, after sore temptation, you may have contemplated. You would have stopped short when you realized that you were on the brink of an evil deed. And—and if you hadn't stopped short I—well, I, perhaps, should have tried to make allowances. So, if you cannot give me your confidence, at least let me give you my help."

"Help?" came the man's sobbing cry, as the blood surged into his brain, and all barriers of conscience, expedience, and common-sense were swept away in a whirlpool of riotous passion—"it is your love I want, my darling. The love of such as you means not only help but regeneration, life itself, to such as I."

By the great laws that govern us, these things happen so, and the love of Leslie Chermside and Violet Maynard had passed beyond the region of words and of petty sophistries. They were locked in each other's arms, eye to eye and lip to lip, at that moment of glad surrender in the solitude of the rose garden—a solitude that was not entirely solitary.

For from behind the high box-hedge that hemmed them in, the French maid, Louise Aubin, glided across the silent turf back to the house, her piquant features contracted in a venomous frown. She had come out to seek her young mistress on some trifling errand, but, having found her, decided to retreat without fulfilling it.