She finished dressing as speedily as possible, ate a hasty meal, and
hastened to Tommy's room. To her surprise she found it empty, but as she
turned on the threshold the sound of her brother's laugh came to her
through the passage. Evidently Tommy was visiting his fellow sufferer.

With a touch of anxiety as to Monck's fitness to receive a visitor, she
turned in the direction of the laugh. But at Monck's door she paused,
constrained by something that checked her almost like a hand laid upon
her. The blood ran up to her temples and beat through her brain. She
found she could not enter.

As she stood there hesitating, Monck's voice came to her, quiet and
rational. She could not hear what he said, but Tommy's more impetuous
tones cutting in were clearly audible.

"Oh, rats, my dear fellow! Don't be so damn' modest! You're worth a
score of Dacres and you bet she knows it."

Stella tingled from head to foot. In another moment she would have
passed swiftly on, but even as the impulse came to her it was
frustrated. The door in front of her suddenly opened, and she was face
to face with Monck himself.

He stood leaning slightly on the handle of the door. He was draped in a
long dressing-gown of Oriental silk that hung upon him dejectedly as if
it yearned for a stouter tenant. In it he looked leaner and taller than
he had ever seemed to her before. He had a cigarette between his lips,
but this he removed with a flicker of humour as he observed her glance.

"Caught in the act," he remarked. "Please come in!"