bath--anything, only send them away!'

They heard Vessons recitative.

'The master's very sorry, mum, but he's got the colic too bad to see
you. It's heave, curse, heave, curse, till I pray for a good vomit!'

The Clombers, urgent upon his track, shouldered past and strode in.

'What the devil do they want?' muttered Reddin. He rose sulkily.

'I hear,' said the eldest Miss Clomber, who had read Bordello and was
very clever, 'that young Lochinvar has taken to himself a bride.'

This was quite up to her usual standard, for not only had it the true
literary flavour, but it was ironic, for she knew who Hazel was.

''Er?' queried Reddin, shaking hands in his rather race-course manner.

'Introduce me, Mr. Reddin!' simpered Amelia Clomber. It was painful
when she simpered; her mouth was made for sterner uses.

They surveyed Hazel, who shrank from their gaze. Something in their
eyes made her feel as if they were her judges, and as if they knew all
about Hunter's Spinney.

They looked at her with detestation. They thought it was detestation
for a sinner. Really, it was for the woman who had, in a few weeks
after meeting him, found favour in Reddin's eyes, and attained that
defeat which, to women even so desiccated as the Clombers, is the one