Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER m THE BLOOD-STAINED PORTRAIT IN the vestibule I hung around waiting till Anne and Mrs. Dennis Sutherland should reappear from the cloak-room. It was close on the time when I was due at Whitehall Gardens, but I must have a parting word with Anne, even at the risk of being late for the appointment with my chief. Jim and Mary passed through, and paused to say good night. "It's all right, Maurice?" Mary whispered. "And you 're coming to us to-morrow, anyhow ? " "Yes; to say good-bye, if I have to start on Monday." "Just about tune you were on the war-path again, my boy," said Jim, bluffly. "Idleness is demoralizing, 'specially in London." Now this was scarcely fair, considering that it was little more than a month since I returned from South Africa, where I had been to observe and report on the conditions of labor in the mines; nor had I been by any means idle during those weeks of comparative leisure. But I knew, of course, that this was an oblique reference to my a Hair with Anne; though why Jim should disapprove of it so strongly passed my comprehension. If Anne chose to keep me on tenter-hooks, well that was my affair, not his.' Still, I was n't goingto quarrel with Jim over his opinion, as I should have quarrelled with any other man. Anne joined me directly, and we had two precious minutes together under the portico. Mrs. Sutherland's carriage had not yet come into the courtyard, and she herself was chatting with folks she knew. There were plenty of people about, coming and going, but Anne and I paced along out of the crowd, and paused in the shadow of one of the pillars. She looked ethereal, ghostlike, in her long white cloak, with a filmy hood thing drawn loosely over her shining hair. I thought her paler than usual — though that migh...