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Smoking a Cavour, Munden lay back in the shadow of the pergola, and seemed to disdain reply.

‘Your advice?’

‘What’s the good of advising a man born to be fooled? Why, let the —- do her worst!’

Shergold winced.

‘We mustn’t forget that it’s all my fault.’

‘Yes, just as it’s your own fault you didn’t die on the day of your birth!’

‘I must raise the offer–‘

‘By all means; offer ten thousand. I suppose a jury would give her two hundred and fifty.’

‘But the scandal–the ridicule–‘

‘Face it. Very likely it’s the only thing that would teach you wisdom and save your life.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it. I half believe it might be effectual.’

He kept alone for most of the day. In the evening, from nine to ten, he went upon the lake with Harvey, but could not talk; his blue eyes were sunk in a restless melancholy, his brows were furrowed, he kept making short, nervous movements, as though in silent remonstrance with himself. And when the next morning came, and Harvey Munden rang the bell for his coffee, a waiter brought him a note addressed in Shergold’s hand. ‘I have started for London,’ ran the hurriedly written lines. ‘Don’t be uneasy; all I mean to do is to stop the danger of a degrading publicity; the fear of that is too much for me. I have an idea, and you shall hear how I get on in a few days.’

The nature of that promising idea Munden never learnt. His next letter from Shergold came in about ten days; it informed him very briefly that the writer was ‘about to be married,’ and that in less than a week he would have started with his wife on a voyage round the world. Harvey did not reply; indeed, the letter contained no address.

One day in November he was accosted at the club by his familiar bore.

‘So your friend Shergold is dead?’

‘Dead? I know nothing of it.’

‘Really? They talked of it last night at Lady Teasdale’s. He died a few days ago, at Calcutta. Dysentery, or something of that kind. His wife cabled to some one or other.’