painfully in earnest. The man's tone was light and flippant. The woman drew a long deep breath. Miss Paynter heard her, as she stood without, pressing the letter closer and closer to her breast.
"When I think of how I nearly jumped out of my skin for joy when I became the Duchess of Staines, it seems impossible that after all it should have come to this."
"Exchange is no robbery—you're going to be a countess for a change. Don't you think it sounds well enough—Countess of Datchet?"
"It's all very well for you to laugh, but you don't know what it means to me. You think what he thought. Because I was a music-hall singer—a serio-comic—the Pearl of the Peris—he thought that I was anybody's money. But I wasn't, and so he found—and so you'll find! Dicky, if you don't marry me directly you can, I'll murder you—I swear I will!"
"There's not time enough for tragedy, Polly. Put it off until we're in the train."
"Do you think those—those brutes will follow us?"
"If you mean the detectives, I take it for granted that one, if not two of them, will be our fellow-travellers to the sunny South. They will enjoy the trip at Teddy's expense."
There was silence. The woman was pacing to and fro. When she spoke again it was in tones of the intensest bitterness.
"If I were to tell you what I've stood from that man, you wouldn't wonder at what I'm doing now. He's treated me worse than a dog from the moment
