“Dead!” she cried.

Wolf held his peace for a moment or two, while his brain worked at top speed.

“What Christie must have gone through!” he murmured audibly, but in a tone as if talking to himself rather than to her. “What she must have gone through!”

Miss Gault’s comment upon this was drowned by the brazen noise issuing from the engine of one of the roundabouts which they were now approaching.

“What did you say?” he shouted in her ear.

“I said that Christie Malakite has no heart!” cried Miss Gault; and her voice was almost as harsh as the raucous whistle that saluted them.

He stopped at this, and they both stood motionless, looking at each other covertly, while a magnetic current of inexplicable antagonism flickered between them.