"In the past twelve months you have had thirty-nine judgments recorded against you, and in the previous year, twenty-seven. You are living on exactly thirty shillings a week, and all the rest is going to your father's creditors."
"You're very impertinent!" she said hotly and, as she felt, foolishly.
"I'm very pertinent, really. By the way, my name is Glover--John Glover, of the firm of Rennett, Glover and Simpson. The gentleman at your side is Mr. Charles Rennett, my senior partner. We are a firm of solicitors, but how long we shall remain a firm," he added pointedly, "depends rather upon you."
"Upon me?" said the girl in genuine astonishment. "Well, I can't say that I have so much love for lawyers----"
"That I can well understand," murmured Mr. Glover.
"But I certainly do not wish to dissolve your partnership," she went on.
"It is rather more serious than that," said Mr. Rennett, who was sitting by her side. "The fact is, Miss Beale, we are acting in a perfectly illegal manner, and we are going to reveal to you the particulars of an act we contemplate, which, if you pass on the information to the police, will result in our professional ruin. So you see this adventure is infinitely more important to us than at present it is to you. And here we are!" he said, interrupting the girl's question.
The car turned into a narrow drive, and proceeded some distance through an avenue of trees before it pulled up at the pillared porch of a big house.
Rennett helped her to alight and ushered her through the door, which opened almost as they stopped, into a large panelled hall.
"This is the way, let me show you," said the younger man.
He opened a door and she found herself in a big drawing-room, exquisitely furnished and lit by two silver electroliers suspended from the carved roof.
To her relief an elderly woman rose to greet her.
"This is my wife, Miss Beale," said Rennett. "I need hardly explain that this is also my home."
"So you found the young lady," said the elderly lady, smiling her welcome, "and what does Miss Beale think of your proposition?"
The young man Glover came in at that moment, and divested of his long raincoat and hat, he proved to be of a type that the Universities turn out by the hundred. He was good-looking too, Lydia noticed with feminine inconsequence, and there was something in his eyes that inspired trust. He nodded with a smile to Mrs. Rennett, then turned to the girl.