“He has consented now,” said Betty, “and Phyllis is delighted.”

“No doubt it’s a bid for popular favour,” said I. And I told her of his dwindling business and of my encounter with him.  When I came to his threat Betty’s brows darkened.

“I don’t like that at all,” she said.

“Why?  What do you think he means?”

“Mischief.”  She lowered her voice, for, it being visiting day at the hospital, people were passing up and down the corridor.  “Suppose he has some of the people here in his power?”

“Blackmail—?” I glanced up at her sharply.  “What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” she replied abruptly.  Then she looked down and fingered her wedding-ring.  “I only said ‘suppose.’”

A Sister appeared at the door of the ward and seeing us together paused hoveringly.

“I rather think you’re wanted,” said I.

I left the hospital somewhat disturbed in mind.  Summons to duty had cut our conversation short; but I knew that no matter how long I had cross-questioned Betty I should have got nothing further out of her.  She was a remarkably outspoken young woman.  What she said she meant, and what she didn’t want to say all the cripples in the British Army could not have dragged out of her.

I tried her again a few days later.  A slight cold, aided and abetted by a dear exaggerating idiot of a tyrannical doctor, confined me to the house and she came flying in, expecting to find me in extremis.  When she saw me clothed and in my right mind and smoking a big cigar, she called me a fraud.

“Look here,” said I, after a while.  “About Gedge—­” again her brow darkened and her lips set stiffly—­“do you think he has his knife into young Randall Holmes?”

I had worried about the boy.  Naturally, if Gedge found the relations between his daughter and Randall unsatisfactory, no one could blame him for any outbreak of parental indignation.  But he ought to break out openly, while there was yet time—­before any harm was done—­not nurse some diabolical scheme of subterraneous vengeance.  Betty’s brow cleared, and she laughed.  I saw at once that I was on a wrong track.

“Why should he have his knife into Randall?  I suppose you’ve got Phyllis in your mind.”

“I have.  How did you guess?”

She laughed again.

“What other reason could he have?  But how did you come to hear of Randall and Phyllis?”

“Never mind,” said I, “I did.  And if Gedge is angry, I can to some extent sympathize with him.”

“But he’s not.  Not the least little bit in the world,” she declared, lighting a cigarette.  “Gedge and Randall are as thick as thieves, and Phyllis won’t have anything to do with either of them.”

“Now, my dear,” said I.  “Now that you’re married, become a real womanly woman and fill my empty soul with gossip.”

“There’s no gossip at all about it,” she replied serenely.  “It’s all sordid and romantic fact.  The two men hold long discussions together at Gedge’s house, Gedge talking anti-patriotism and Randall talking rot which he calls philosophy.  You can hear them, can’t you?  Their meeting-ground is the absurdity of Randall joining the army.”