A few hours later, Stirling Deane sat at a small round dining-table, side by side with the father of the girl to whom he had been engaged for exactly three days. His hostess, the Countess of Nunneley, and her daughter, Lady Olive, had only just left them. It had been a dinner absolutely en famille.

"Draw up your chair, Deane, and try some of this port," Lord Nunneley said.

"Thank you," replied Deane, "I'll finish my champagne, if I may."

"Just as you like," his host answered. "I notice you are very careful never to mix, Deane. Perhaps you are right. There's nothing like being absolutely fit, and you fellows in the city must have a tremendous lot on your minds sometimes. I suppose, however prosperous you are, you never have a day without a certain amount of anxiety?"

"Never," Deane assented quietly.

Lord Nunneley, who had a great reputation as a peer of marked sporting proclivities, crossed his legs, and, leaning back in his chair, lit a cigarette.

"I never thought," he continued, "that I should be glad to give Olive to anyone—to anyone—you won't mind if I say it—outside our own immediate circle. Of course, I know your people were all right. I've ridden to hounds with your father many a time, but when a family drifts into the city, one naturally loses sight of them. You will find me a model father-in-law, though, Deane. I never borrow money, I wouldn't be a director of a public company for anything in the world, and I haven't a single relation for whom I want a berth."

Deane smiled. His manner was natural enough, but only he knew how difficult he found it to continue this sort of conversation—to keep his attention fixed upon the somewhat garrulous utterances of his prospective father-in-law.

"You are very wise to steer clear of all that sort of thing, sir," he said. "The city is no place for men who have not been brought up to it, and the days of guinea-pig directors are over."

Lord Nunneley nodded. "My lawyers have been making inquiries about you to-day, Deane," he said. "You insisted on my doing so, so I let them, although it was more for your satisfaction than mine. According to their report, you seem to have rather underestimated your position. They tell me that yours is one of the richest corporations in the mining world, and that you yourself are very wealthy."

Deane inclined his head slowly. He leaned across the table, and helped himself to a cigarette. A few nights ago he could have listened to such a speech with a feeling of genuine satisfaction. Now, everything seemed changed. The rock upon which he had stood seemed to have become a shifting quicksand. Dick Sinclair was a blackmailer and a thief, he told himself, with a fierce desire to escape from the shadow which seemed somehow to have settled upon him. The document he had brandished was not worth the paper it was written on! His attack, even if he ventured to make it, could prove no more venomous than the sting of an insect. Yet the shadow remained. Deane, for the first time, possibly, in his life, felt that his nerve had temporarily gone. It was all that he could do to sit still and listen to his companion's easy talk.

"Of course, I am glad enough for Olive to marry a rich man, especially as her tastes seem to run that way," Lord Nunneley continued; "but I tell you frankly that I shouldn't have fancied a marriage for money pure and simple. I am not a wealthy man, but I can keep my places going pretty comfortably, and I don't know the meaning of a mortgage. Olive will have her thousand a year settled upon her for life when she marries, and something more when I die. In a sense, it's nothing, of course, but it will help pay for her frocks."

"I am sure you are very generous," Deane murmured. "I had not even considered the question of dowry so far as Olive was concerned."

Lord Nunneley nodded. "As I remarked just now," he went on, "I should have hated the idea of a marriage for money pure and simple. I have seen you ride to hounds, Deane, as well as any man I know, and there's no one I'd sooner trust to bring down his birds at an awkward corner than you. That sort of thing counts, you know. I always meant to have a sportsman for a son-in-law, and I am thankful that your city life hasn't spoiled you for the other things. By the way, how old are you, Deane?"

"I shall be forty my next birthday," Deane answered.

His host nodded. "Well," he said, "you won't want to go wearing yourself out making more millions, surely? Why don't you retire, and buy an estate?"

"I have thought of it," Deane answered. "I mean to take things easier, at any rate, after my marriage."

Lord Nunneley sipped his wine reflectively. "I have never done a stroke of work all my life," he remarked, "beyond looking after my agent's accounts, which I have never been able to understand, and trying a little scientific farming, by which I have invariably lost money. I do respect a man, though, who has been through the mill and held his own, and against whom no one has a word to say. At the same time, Deane," he added, "don't stick at it too long. If you'll forgive my mentioning it, you don't look quite the man you did even two or three years ago."

"I am a little run down," Deane said. "I am going to take a holiday in a few weeks."

"You are coming to us in Scotland, of course," said Lord Nunneley. "But holiday or no holiday, take my advice, and even if you have to sacrifice a bit, don't stay in harness too long. The money you can't spend isn't worth a snap of the fingers. You and Olive could live on the interest of what you have, and there's scarcely a thing you need deny yourselves."

Deane hesitated for a moment. "That is true enough," he said, "but it is never quite so easy, when one is involved in things as I am, to escape from them. The Devil Spider spins a golden web to catch us mortals, and it's hard work to get out of it. I am afraid that my shareholders would consider themselves very much aggrieved if I sent in my resignation without at least a year's warning."

"A year," Lord Nunneley remarked reflectively. "Well, I should feel quite satisfied if I thought that you were going to chuck it then. Don't misunderstand me, Deane," he went on. "Please don't for a moment believe that I am such an arrant snob as to mind having a son-in-law who's engaged in business. I look upon yours as a jolly fine position, and I can assure you that I have a sincere respect for a man who has attained to it at your age. It is simply that I fancy you are carrying a much heavier burden than you sometimes realize—simply for your own sake and Olive's that I would like to hear of your taking things more easily."

"I understand," Deane said,—"I quite understand. You are really very kind, Lord Nunneley! Even if it is impossible for me to escape just for the moment, I can assure you that I shall take the first opportunity of doing so."

The butler, with an apologetic bow, came softly across the room and delivered a message. Lady Olive was going to a party, and would be glad if Mr. Deane could come into the drawing-room at once.