holiness, to cast away the armour of light, and to put upon him the true colours of an aristocratic atheist of the deepest dye.'"

"Exactly what he did," murmured Uvo, with another look at me. It was not a look of triumph unalloyed; it was at least as full of vivid apprehension.

"I shall cross that out," said Miss Julia decidedly. "I don't know what I was thinking of to write anything like that. It really makes me almost afraid to go on."

Uvo shot out a prompt and eager hand.

"Will you let me take it away to finish by myself, Miss Brabazon?"

"I don't think I can. I must look and see if there's anything more like that."

"But it isn't your fault if there is. You've simply been inspired to write the truth."

"But I feel almost ashamed."

And the typewritten sheets rustled more than ever as she raised them once more. But Delavoye jumped up and stood over her with a stiff lip.

"Miss Brabazon, you really must let me read the rest of it to myself!"

"I must see first whether I can let anybody."

"Let me see instead!"

Heaven knows how she construed his wheedling eagerness! There was a moment when they both had hold of the MS., when I felt that my friend was going too far, that his obstinate persistence could not fail to be resented as a liberty. But it was just at such moments that there was a smack of greatness about Uvo Delavoye; given the stimulus, he could carry a thing off with a high hand and the light touch of a born leader; and so it must have been that he had Miss Julia coyly giggling when I fully expected her to stamp her foot.

"You talk about our curiosity," she rallied him. "You men are just as bad!"

"I have a right to be curious," returned Uvo, in a tone that surprised me as much as hers. "You forget that your villain was once the head of our clan, and that so far the fact is quite unmistakable."

"But that's just what I can't understand!"

"Yet the fact remains, Miss Brabazon, and I think it ought to count."

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