Her face turned quite white. It is never pleasant to revoke at bridge,
but to Eve just then it seemed a disaster beyond words. She looked
across at her partner. Her imagination pictured the scene there would
be ere long, unless----

It happens every now and then that the human brain shows in a crisis an
unwonted flash of speed. Eve's did at this juncture. To her in her
trouble there came a sudden idea.

She looked round the table. Mr. Rastall-Retford, having taken the last
trick, had gathered it up in the introspective manner of one planning
big _coups_, and was brooding tensely, with knit brows. His mother
was frowning over her cards. She was unobserved.

She seized the opportunity. She rose from her seat, moved quickly to
the side-table, and, turning her back, slipped the fatal card
dexterously into the interior of a cheese sandwich.

Mrs. Rastall-Retford, absorbed, did not notice for an instant. Then she
gave tongue.

"What are you doing, Miss Hendrie?"

Eve was breathing quickly.

"I--I thought that Mr. Rayner might like a sandwich."

She was at his elbow with the plate. It trembled in her hand.

"A sandwich! Kindly do not be so officious, Miss Hendrie. The idea--in