There was, no doubt, a horrid scandal brewing about Mrs.
Weightman, Chloe's old friend--a friend of his own, too, in former days.
Through Chloe's unpardonable indiscretions he knew a great deal more about this lady's affairs than he had ever wished to know.

And he well remembered the letter in question: a letter on which the political life or death of one of England's most famous men might easily turn, supposing it got out.

But the letter was safe enough; not the least likely to come into dangerous hands, in spite of Chloe's absurd hypotheses.

It was somewhere, no doubt, among the boxes in the locked room; and who could possibly get hold of it?
At the same time he realized that as long as he had not found and returned it she would still have a certain claim upon him, a certain right to harass him with inquiries and confidential interviews, which, as a man of honour, he could not altogether deny.
A pheasant got up across a ploughed field where in the mild season the young corn was already green.

Roger shot, and missed; the bird floated gaily down the wind, and the head keeper, in disgust, muttered bad language to the underling beside him.
But after that Barnes was twice as cheerful as before.