“Hardly that, an acquaintance only,” said Hugh.

Slotman felt relieved.

“Miss Meredyth is in the outer general office.  You could hardly talk to her there.  If you will sit down, I will go out and send her to you, Mr.—­Alston.”  He glanced at the card.

“Thanks, perhaps you would be so kind as not to mention my name to her,” said Hugh.

“Something up!” Slotman thought.  He was an eminently suspicious man; he suspected everyone, and more particularly all those who were in his pay.  He suspected his clerks of wasting their time—­his time, the time he paid for.  He suspected them of filching the petty cash, stealing the postage stamps, cheating him and getting the better of him in some way, and in order to keep a watch on them he had riddled his suite of offices with peepholes, listening holes, and spyholes in every unlikely corner.

A small waiting office divided his private apartment from the General Office, and peepholes cunningly contrived permitted anyone to hear and see all that passed in the General Office, and in his own office too.

He found a young clerk in the waiting office, and sent him to Miss Meredyth.

“Ask Miss Meredyth to go to my office at once, not through this way, and then you remain in the General Office till I send for you,” said Slotman.

This gave him the advantage he wanted.  He locked both doors leading into the waiting office, and took up his position at the spyhole that gave him command of his own office.

He could see his visitor plainly.  Hugh Alston was pacing the room slowly, his hands behind his back, his face wearing a look of worry.  Slotman saw him pause and turn expectantly to the door at the far end of the room.

Slotman could not see this door, but he heard it open, and he knew by the look on the man’s face that Joan had come in.

“Why are you here?  How dare you follow me here?”

“I have dared to follow you here, to express my deep regret for what is past,” Hugh said.  He looked at the girl, her white face, the hard line made by a mouth that should be sweet and gentle.

It seemed, he thought, that the very sight of him roused all that was cold and bitter in her nature.

“Am I to be tormented and insulted by you all my life?” she asked.

“You are unreasonable!  You cannot think that this visit is one that gives me any pleasure,” Hugh said.

“Then why do you come?”

“I asked permission of your employer to see you, and he kindly placed his office at our disposal.  I shall not keep you long.”

“I do not intend that you shall, and in future—­”

“Will you hear what I have to say?  Surely I am not asking too much?”

“Is it necessary?”

“To me, very!  I wish to make a few things plain to you.  In the past—­I had no intention of hurting or of disgracing you—­”

Slotman started, and clenched his hands.  What did that man mean?  He wondered, what could such words as those mean?