“I always knew she really liked him,” the other man went on complacently.  “If he’d had Mortlake’s money——­” He shrugged his shoulders significantly.

Sangster waited to hear no more; he went straight to Jimmy’s hotel.  It was late then—­nearly eleven.  The hall porter said in reply to his inquiry that Mr. and Mrs. Challoner had both been in all the evening, he thought, and were still in; he looked at Sangster’s agitated face curiously.

“Was you wishing to see Mr. Challoner, sir?”

“No—­oh, no.  I only thought—­you need not tell him that I called.”  He went away wretchedly; he wondered if Christine knew—­and if so, what she must be thinking.

He never slept all night.  He was on the ’phone to Jimmy long before breakfast; he was infinitely relieved to hear Jimmy’s voice.

“Hallo—­yes, I’m all right, thanks.  Want to see me?  Well——­”

There was a pause here.  Sangster waited in a fever of impatience.  After a moment: 

“I’ll meet you for lunch, if you like. . . .  No, can’t before. . . .  What do you say?  Christine?  Oh, yes—­yes, thanks; she’s very well.”

There was another pause.  “One o’clock, then.”

Jimmy rang off.

Sangster felt easier as he sat down to his breakfast.  Jimmy’s voice had sounded fairly normal, if a little constrained; and it was not such a very long time till one o’clock, when he would hear all there was to hear.

He forced himself to work all the morning.  He did not even glance at a paper; he knew they would be full of Cynthia Farrow’s accident and tragic death; he dreaded lest there might be some inadvertent allusion made to Jimmy.  He was still hoping that Christine would never know that Jimmy had been sent for; he rightly guessed that if she heard it would mean a long farewell to any hope of happiness in her married life.

Jealousy—­bitter jealousy; that was what had been rending her heart, he knew.  He stopped writing; he took up a pencil, and absently began scribbling on his blotter.

If Cynthia were out of the way, there was no reason why, in time, Jimmy and his wife should not be perfectly happy.  He hoped with all his heart that they would be; he would have given a great deal to have seen Christine smiling and radiant once more, as she had been that night when they all had supper at Marino’s.

He sighed heavily; he looked at the lines he had been so absently scribbling.

Christine—­Christine—­Christine.  Nothing but her name.  It stared up at him in all shapes and sizes from the blotter.  Sangster flushed dully; he tore the sheet of paper free, and tossed it into the fire.  What was he dreaming about?  Where were his thoughts?

He had arranged to meet Jimmy at the same little restaurant where yesterday he had taken Christine to lunch.  He was there a quarter of an hour before the appointed time.

When Jimmy arrived Sangster glanced at him anxiously.  He was very pale; his eyes looked defiant; there was a hard fold to his lips.