Abroad? He frowned. If Arthur Gine had gone abroad he must have left very suddenly. He had seen him only a day or two before. But perhaps that was one of Dick Alford’s lies to save the girl’s face. Still, it was disquieting.

He was pondering this matter when the maid brought him his morning letters, and the first he saw was one in a well-known hand. It was from Leslie. He tore it open with trembling fingers, took out the half-sheet of paper and read the few lines. He read it not once but many times. So that was that! She had changed her mind.

It did not occur to him that she had not made any promise, but he was so sure of her, so satisfied in his mind that she would agree to his proposal, that he felt he had been tricked.

When the shock had worn off, his anger and resentment grew. Very well: if she could not keep her promise, he at least would keep his. He understood now, he thought. Arthur had bolted, and there was no necessity for the girl to make her sacrifice. He had been fooled, tricked. He pushed the chair back from the table, leaving his breakfast untouched, and, going into his library, turned the handle of the combination and pulled open the door of the safe with a savage jerk. There was the letter, all ready to post, and at the sight of it his heart grew hard and sour.

He took out the letter, made to tear it into fragments, and then remembered that inside was a blank cheque. He pulled out the sheet of notepaper and felt for the little pink slip that in his magnificence he had signed with a complacent flourish. It was not there!

Gilder peered into the envelope with a frown. Gone! He searched the safe: it might have fallen out, though how, he could not imagine; but there was no sign of the cheque. He unlocked his drawer and took out his cheque-book. There was the counterfoil, and, written across it, “For Leslie – ” He had intended showing her that counterfoil one of these days, when she felt more kindly towards him.

With his head in his hands he tried to remember when he had last seen the cheque, and then he recalled that it was on the morning Arthur Gine had called to see him. At that thought he went white. Surely he had closed the safe? Again he struggled to remember, minute by minute, that fateful morning. He had been looking at the letter, he had put it away, he had closed the door, and then – the telephone bell had rung and he had forgotten to fasten the safe!