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Archie ended his vigorous speech with the full expectation of being made to pay the penalty by means of a damaged skin.

Wingarde’s face was uncompromising. It told nothing of his mood during the heavy silence that followed. It was, therefore, a considerable shock when he abruptly surrendered the citadel without striking a single blow.

“I am much obliged to you, Neville,” he said very quietly. “And I beg to apologize for a most unworthy suspicion. Will you shake hands?”

Archie tumbled off his high horse with more speed than elegance. He thrust out his hand with an inarticulate murmur of assent. Perhaps after all the fellow had been no worse than an unmannerly bear. The next minute he was discussing politics with the monster he had dared to beard in his own den.

When Nina saw her husband again he treated her with a courtesy so scrupulous that she felt the miserable scourge of her uncertainty at work again. She would have given much to have possessed the key to his real feelings. With regard to his establishment of the Wade Home, he gave her the briefest explanation. He had been originally intended for a doctor, he said, had passed his medical examinations, and been qualified to practise. Then, at the last minute, a chance opening had presented itself, and he had gone into finance instead.

“After that,” he somewhat sarcastically said, “I gave myself up to the all absorbing business of money-making. And doctoring became merely my fad, my amusement, my recreation–whatever you please to call it.”

“I wish you had told me,” Nina said, in a low voice.

At which remark he merely shrugged his shoulders, making no rejoinder.

She felt hurt by his manner and said no more. Only later there came to her the memory of the man she feared, standing in the doorway of the matron’s room with a little child in his arms. Somehow that picture was very vividly impressed upon her mind.

XI

MONEY’S NOT EVERYTHING

“What! You are coming too?”

Nina stopped short on her way to the car and gazed at her husband in amazement.

He had returned early from the City, and she now met him dressed to attend a garden-party whither she herself was going.

He bent his head in answer to her surprised question.

“I shall give myself the pleasure of accompanying you,” he said, with much formality.

She coloured and bit her lip. Swift as evil came the thought that he resented her intimacy with Archie and was determined to frustrate any attempt on their part to secure a tete-a-tete.

“You take great care of me,” she said, with a bitter little smile.

Wingarde made no response; his face was quite inscrutable.

They scarcely spoke during the drive, and she kept her face averted. Only when he held out his hand to assist her to alight she met his eye for an instant and wondered vaguely at the look he gave her.

The party was a large one; the lawns were crowded. Nina took the first opportunity that offered to slip away from him, for she felt hopelessly ill at ease in his company. The sensation of being watched that had oppressed her during her brief honeymoon had reawakened.

Archie presently joined her.

“Did I see the hero of the Crawley gold field just now?” he asked. “Or was it hallucination?”

Nina looked at him with a very bored expression.

“Oh, yes, my husband is here,” she said. “I suppose you had better not stay with me or he will come up and be rude to you.”

Archie chuckled.

“Not he! We understand one another,” he said lightly. “But, I say, what an impostor the fellow is! Everyone knows about Dr. Wade, but no one connects him in the smallest degree with Hereford Wingarde. It shouldn’t be allowed to go on. You ought to tell the town-crier.”

Nina tried to laugh, but it was a somewhat dismal effort.

“Come along!” said Archie cheerily. “There’s my mother over there; she has been wondering where you were.”