confide in you that if there is one country in this world which I
detest, it is England; one race of people whom I abominate, it is
the English."

She showed her surprise frankly, but his manner encouraged no further
confidence. She touched the bell, and he bowed over her fingers.

"My friend Phillips," he said, in formal accents, as the butler stood
upon the threshold, "will never live, I fear, to offer you all the
gratitude he feels, but you are doing a very kind and a very wonderful
action, Miss Beverley, and one which I think will bring its
own reward."

He passed out of the room, leaving Katharine a prey to a curious
tangle of emotions. She watched him almost feverishly until he had
disappeared, listened to his footsteps in the hall and the closing of
the front door. Then she hurried to the window, watched him descend
the row of steps, pass down the little drive and hail a taxicab. It
was not until he was out of sight that she became in any way like
herself. Then she broke into a little laugh.

"Heavens alive!" she exclaimed to herself. "Now I have to find Aunt
Molly and tell her that I am going to Europe to-morrow with a perfect
stranger!"




CHAPTER III