Ada looked round with affection on the small room with the sporting prints, the whisky calendar, and the gong.

For months past she had felt more at home there than at the "Silver Shoe." She had never forgotten the scene that had followed her first visit to this room, when Jonah, surprised by her good humour, had smelt brandy on her breath.

The sight of a misshapen devil, with murder in his eyes, spitting insults, had sobered her like cold water.

She had stammered out a tale of a tea-room where she had been taken ill, and brandy had been brought in from the adjoining hotel.

Mrs Herring, who had spent a lifetime in deceiving men, had prepared this story for her as one teaches a lesson to a child, but she had forgotten it until she found herself mechanically repeating it, her brain sobered by the shock.