“Come in, Audrey,” called Mrs. Stevens.

“What’s up?” said Audrey, looking in at the door.

“Oh, my dear, you gave me such a turn.  Where have you been?”

“Up to the Temple.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Hear what?”

“Bangs and explosions and terrible things.”

“Oh!” said Audrey, rather relieved.  “One of the men shooting rabbits.  Why, I said to myself as I came along, ’Auntie’s partial to a nice rabbit,’ I said, and I shouldn’t be surprised if—­”

“Rabbits!” said her aunt scornfully.  “It was inside the house, my girl.”

“Straight it was,” said Elsie.  She was one of the housemaids.  “I said to Mrs. Stevens—­didn’t I, Mrs. Stevens?—­’That was in the house,’ I said.”

Audrey looked at her aunt and then at Elsie.

“Do you think he had a revolver with him?” she said in a hushed voice.

“Who?” said Elsie excitedly.

“That brother of his.  From Australia.  I said as soon as I set eyes on him, ‘You’re a bad lot, my man!’ That’s what I said, Elsie.  Even before he spoke to me.  Rude!” She turned to her aunt.  “Well, I give you my word.”

“If you remember, Audrey, I always said there was no saying with anyone from Australia.”  Mrs. Stevens lay back in her chair, breathing rather rapidly.  “I wouldn’t go out of this room now, not if you paid me a hundred thousand pounds.”

“Oh, Mrs. Stevens!” said Elsie, who badly wanted five shillings for a new pair of shoes, “I wouldn’t go as far as that, not myself, but—­”

“There!” cried Mrs. Stevens, sitting up with a start.  They listened anxiously, the two girls instinctively coming closer to the older woman’s chair.

A door was being shaken, kicked, rattled.

“Listen!”

Audrey and Elsie looked at each other with frightened eyes.

They heard a man’s voice, loud, angry.

“Open the door!” it was shouting.  “Open the door!  I say, open the door!”

“Don’t open the door!” cried Mrs. Stevens in a panic, as if it was her door which was threatened.  “Audrey!  Elsie!  Don’t let him in!”

“Damn it, open the door!” came the voice again.

“We’re all going to be murdered in our beds,” she quavered.  Terrified, the two girls huddled closer, and with an arm round each, Mrs. Stevens sat there, waiting.

CHAPTER II

Mr. Gillingham Gets Out at the Wrong Station

Whether Mark Ablett was a bore or not depended on the point of view, but it may be said at once that he never bored his company on the subject of his early life.  However, stories get about.  There is always somebody who knows.  It was understood—­and this, anyhow, on Mark’s own authority—­that his father had been a country clergyman.  It was said that, as a boy, Mark had attracted the notice, and patronage, of some rich old spinster of the neighbourhood,