When he said that, my heart leaped in my bosom.  I had to turn away.

‘I am afraid that is out of the question.’

He stopped in his tramping, and looked at me askance.

‘Why?’

I felt that, if I was not careful, I should be done for,—­and, probably, in his present mood, Marjorie too.

’My dear Lindon, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for your suggestion, but I can only repeat that—­unfortunately, anything of the kind is out of the question.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘You—­you’re a pretty lot, upon my word!’

‘I’m afraid we are.’

‘I—­I want you to tell her that Lessingham is a damned scoundrel.’

’I see.—­But I would suggest that if I am to use the influence with which you credit me to the best advantage, or to preserve a shred of it, I had hardly better state the fact quite so bluntly as that.’

’I don’t care how you state it,—­state it as you like.  Only—­only I want you to soak her mind with a loathing of the fellow; I—­I—­I want you to paint him in his true colours; in—­in—­in fact, I—­I want you to choke him off.’

While he still struggled with his words, and with the perspiration on his brow, Edwards entered.  I turned to him.

‘What is it?’

‘Miss Lindon, sir, wishes to see you particularly, and at once.’

At that moment I found the announcement a trifle perplexing,—­it delighted Lindon.  He began to stutter and to stammer.

’T-the very thing!—­c-couldn’t have been belter!—­show her in here!  H—­hide me somewhere,—­I don’t care where,—­behind that screen!  Y-you use your influence with her;—­g-give her a good talking to;—­t-tell her what I’ve told you; and at—­at the critical moment I’ll come in, and then—­then if we can’t manage her between us, it’ll be a wonder.’

The proposition staggered me.

‘But, my dear Mr Lindon, I fear that I cannot—­’

He cut me short.

‘Here she comes!’

Ere I could stop him he was behind the screen,—­I had not seen him move with such agility before!—­and before I could expostulate Marjorie was in the room.  Something which was in her bearing, in her face, in her eyes, quickened the beating of my pulses,—­she looked as if something had come into her life, and taken the joy clean out of it.

CHAPTER XXI

THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT

‘Sydney!’ she cried, ‘I’m so glad that I can see you!’

She might be,—­but, at that moment, I could scarcely assert that I was a sharer of her joy.

’I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come to you, and —­I’m in trouble now.  Such strange trouble.’

So was I,—­and in perplexity as well.  An idea occurred to me,—­I would outwit her eavesdropping father.

‘Come with me into the house,—­tell me all about it there.’