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"But you will have your father's estate in due course, won't you?" she asked quite innocently "You always plead poverty You are so like a man"

"Ah! Dorise, I am really poor You don't understand--you can't!"

"But I do," she said "You may have debts Everydebts, jewellery debts Oh! I know I've heard all about these things from another Well, if you have them, you'll be able to settle them out of your father's estate all in due course"

"And if he has left irl at his side "What do you mean?"

"Well----" he said very slowly "At present I have nothing--that's all That is why at Monte Carlo I suggested that--that----"

He did not conclude the sentence

"I ree Sherrard--that thick-lipped ass You said that because you are hard-up?"

"Yes I a in an obscure lodging practically upon the charity of a man upon whom, so far as I can ascertain, I have no claih nodded, and said: "That fact in itself mystifies me I can see no motive I am entirely innocent of the criht e"

"But why did you go to her hoh?"

"As I have already told you, I went to dele question I put to her," he said "But please do no let us discuss the affair further The whole circumstances are painful to ine One day--and I hope it will be soon--you will fully realize what all this has cost h," she said "I know, dear--and I do trust you"

They halted, and he bent and impressed upon her lips a fierce caress

So entirely absorbed in each other were the pair that they failed to notice the sliirl at some distance Indeed, the individual in question had been lurking outside the house in Grosvenor Gardens, and had watched Dorise leave At the end of the street a taxi was drawn up at the kerb awaiting hied"

Then, walking about a couple of hundred yards, she had found another, and entering it, had driven to the Marble Arch But the first taxi had followed the second one, and in it was the well-set-upher in the park as she walked with her lover towards the Victoria Gate