about the Robison-Ogilvie case," he said. "Has it been followed up!"
The Commissioner frowned.
"That is the worst case we have had in the Force," he said. "I hate to think of it. We have hanged an innocent man, and the girl who is responsible for the two deaths has gone off to the North somewhere. I sent Heriot after her once, and he'll get her if anyone can. But I don't expect to hear any more for a long while yet. She had about two months' start."
Tempest had schooled himself to hear something which would hurt. But not all his self-control was quite sufficient. The Commissioner looked up.
"You knew something about her, too, did you? I remember that Heriot was very averse to going. Had he—but that is no business of mine. I told him not to come back without her, and he is too keen on his work to fail."
Tempest stood up, smiling a little.
"No. I don't expect that he will fail," he said. "And I must ask you to excuse me, sir. I'm sleeping at the Ferrar's to-night, and they have people coming for dinner, so I'll have to go round and borrow some clothes. I have only my kit here."
But he walked across the square to the married officers' quarters and up to his room in Ferrar's house without thinking any more about the clothes. He did not quite know what he thought until he caught his eyes asking him the question from the mirror. It was chiefly the eyes which told how Tempest had suffered. The eager glow in them was quenched, and the steady light which shone instead kept its gravity, even when he smiled. There were a few white threads in the thick hair, and the temporal arteries showed more clearly. But the wind-tanned, muscle-hard face held its fine lines still, and his mouth had not lost its sweetness.
"Dick!" he said to the eyes in the mirror. "Dick!"
He sat down, hiding his face in his hands, shaking with the rebellion against life which swept over him. He judged Dick as more merciless, more indifferent, more wilfully cruel than he really was, and for the moment he hated most fiercely the man who had been his friend and whom
