She stopped and gazed woefully in front of her.  Then she hurried on.

“I can prove it.  He demands news of your movements in the Mediterranean.  If it is necessary I must come forward publicly and prove it.  It will be horrible, but of course I will.”

Martin looked at her quickly.  She kept her eyes averted from him.  Her fingers plucked nervously at her dress.  There was an aspect of shame in her attitude.

“It will not be necessary, Joan,” he answered.  “I have quite enough evidence already to put him away until the end of the war.”

Joan turned to him with quivering lips.

“You are sure.  It means so much to me to escape—­what I have no right to escape, I can hardly believe it.”

“I am quite sure,” replied Martin Hillyard.

Joan breathed a long, fluttering sigh of relief.  She sat up as though a weight had been loosed from her shoulders.  The trouble lifted from her face.

“You need not call upon me at all?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to shirk—­any more,” she insisted.  “I should not hesitate.”

“I know that, Joan,” he said with a smile.  She looked out over the gardens to the great line of hills, dim and pleasant as fairyland in the silver haze of the moonlight.  Her eyes travelled eastwards along the ridge and stopped at the clump of Bishop’s Ring which marks the crest of Duncton Hill, and the dark fold below where the trees flow down to Graffham.

“You ask me no questions,” she said in a low, warm voice.  “I am very grateful.”

“I ask you one.  Where is Mario Escobar to-night?”

“At Midhurst,” and she gave him the name of the hotel.

Martin Hillyard laughed.  Whilst the police were inquiring here and searching there and watching the ports for him, he was lying almost within reach of his hand, snugly and peacefully at Midhurst.

“But I expect that he will go from Midhurst now,” Joan added, remembering his snarl of fear when the door had opened behind her, and the haste with which he had fled.

Hillyard looked at his watch.  It was one o’clock in the morning.

“You are in a hurry?” she asked.

“I ought to send a message.”  He turned to Joan.  “You know this house, of course.  Is there a telephone in a quiet room, where I shall not be interrupted or be drowned out, voice and ears by the music?”

“Yes, Mrs. Willoughby’s sitting-room upstairs.  Shall I ask her if you may use it?”

“If you please.”

Joan left Martin standing in one of the corridors and rejoined him after a few minutes.  “Come,” she said, and led the way upstairs to the room.  Martin called up the trunk line and gave a number.

“I shall have to wait a few minutes,” he said.

“You want me to go,” answered Joan, and she moved towards the door reluctantly.

“No.  But you will be missing your dances.”

Joan shook her head.  She did not turn back to him, but stood facing the door as she replied; so that he could not see her face.