“Not you,” Arnold assured him.  “You stopped his hurting Mrs. Weatherley, though.”

Mr. Weatherley sighed.

“I should like to have killed him,” he admitted, simply.  “Fenella and Sabatini, too, her brother,—­they both laugh at me.  They’re a little inclined to be romantic and they think I’m a queer sort of a stick.  I could never make out why she married me,” he went on, confidentially.  “Of course, they were both stoneybroke at the time and I put up a decent bit of money, but it isn’t money, after all, that buys a woman like Fenella.”

“I’m sure she will be very pleased to see you again, sir,” Arnold said.

“Do you think she will, Chetwode?  Do you think she will?” Mr. Weatherley demanded, anxiously.  “Has she missed me while I have been—­where the devil have I been, Chetwode?  You must tell me—­tell me quick!  She’ll be here directly and she’ll want to know.  I can’t remember.  It was a long street and there was a public-house at the corner, and I had a job somewhere, hadn’t I, stacking cheeses?  Look here, Chetwode, you must tell me all about it.  You’re my private secretary.  You ought to know everything of that sort.”

“I’ll make it all right with Mrs. Weatherley,” Arnold promised.  “We can’t go into all these matters now.”

“Of course not—­of course not,” Mr. Weatherley agreed.  “You’re quite right, Chetwode.  A time for everything, eh?  How’s the little lady you brought down to Bourne End?”

“She’s very well, thank you, sir,” Arnold replied.

“Now it’s a queer thing,” Mr. Weatherley continued, “but only yesterday—­or was it the day before—­I was trying to think whom she reminded me of.  It couldn’t have been my brother-in-law, could it, Chetwode.  Did you ever fancy that she was like Sabatini?”

“I had noticed it, sir,” Arnold admitted, with a little start.  “There is a likeness.”

“I’m glad you agree with me,” Mr. Weatherley declared, approvingly.  “Splendid fellow, Sabatini,” he continued,—­“full of race to his finger-tips.  Brave as a lion, too, but unscrupulous.  He’d wring a man’s neck who refused to do what he told him.  Yet do you know, Chetwode, he wouldn’t take money from me?  He was desperately hard up one day, I know, and I offered him a cheque, but he only shook his head.  ‘You can look after Fenella,’ he said.  ’That’s all you’ve got to do.  One in the family is enough.’  The night after, he played baccarat with Rosario and he won two thousand pounds.  Clever fellow—­Sabatini.  I wish I wasn’t so frightened of him.  You know the sort of feeling he gives me, Chetwode?” Mr. Weatherley continued.  “He always makes me feel that I’m wearing the wrong clothes or doing the wrong thing.  I’m never really at my ease when he’s about.  But I like him—­I like him very much indeed.”

Arnold had turned a little away.  He was beginning to feel the strain of the situation.