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“Does she?” said Alison perfunctorily. She was thinking hard. “Tony, Tony, say you don’t mean to try this hare-brained scheme!”

“It’s not hare-brained. It’s quite simple and easy. In Arizona—no, that’s too near . . . Africa . . . no, Australia. Nice and remote. I’ll be going to a gold mine—I wouldn’t, perhaps? Well, to see a dear friend who’s mining, and say good-bye before I go finally to my marble halls. How laudable! And—don’t look like that, dear—I tell you it has often been done before. I have known men who———”

“I don’t care, I hate it.”

“Well, what’s your solution?”

Alison was silent.

“You see. And that poor little Persian kitten must go back to her basket, she was never meant to mouse for herself. I’ll agree to everything and go away to-morrow for England, via Australia, because I have friends there———”

“And Winthrop and I are to join in this conspiracy of lies with you?”

Tony’s jaw looked very square.

“It will be quite unnecessary for you to lie,” he said; “you need only say nothing when they begin to look for me. That’s all. Or if you prefer it can be true———”

Alison’s colour rose. “What do you mean?” she said.

“Only that I can quite easily be dead to you as well, if your conscience won’t let you accept———”

“You have no right to say that sort of thing,” she said, very quietly.

“I am sorry. I apologise—really. But what do you want me to do? Why do you mind so much? Something had to be done, and I know it’s—out of the ordinary, but what else———”

He stopped suddenly, and they sat looking at each other,