"My name is Dale--George Dale, as you very well know." "Pray sit down, Mr. Dale. I don't remember to have had the pleasure of being introduced to you before." "Thanking you all the same, I won't sit down, and as to being introduced to you, I never have been. It's only for your sake I'm speaking to you now. I want to ask you a question to begin with." "Ask it, Mr. Dale." "What are your intentions as regards Miss Joyce?" "Really, Mr. Dale, I don't know if you are joking in putting such a question. If you aren't I certainly don't know what you mean." Rodney smiled at his visitor pleasantly; but the smile, instead of affording Mr. Dale gratification, not only caused his scowl to deepen, but induced him to use language of unexpected vigour. "You're a liar! That's what you are--a liar! You're a liar, because you know quite well what I mean. I'm not afraid of you. You're a bigger man than I am, but I can use the gloves. You wouldn't knock me out so easy as you think. I'd mark you first! But I haven't come here to fight you." "That, at least, is gratifying intelligence, Mr. Dale." "Oh, you can sneer--you're one of the sneering sort; but sneers won't do you any good. You take my tip and get as far away from this as you can--out of England, if you can!--between now and this time to-morrow!" Rodney regarded his visitor with an air of placid amusement, which certainly did not seem to have a soothing effect. "Mr. Dale, am I indebted to you for this?" He held out the sheet of paper on which were the two typewritten lines. Mr. Dale eyed it askance. "What's that? Where did you get it from?" "It came by this morning's post--from you?" "That I'll swear it never did; what's more, I don't know who it does come from. That looks as if there were more than one in it. I'll commit myself to nothing. I've got myself to think of as well as you; but, although this didn't come from me, and I don't know anything at all about it, you do what it says here--get clean away while you have still a chance." Without another word, or giving Rodney a chance to utter one, Mr. Dale bolted from, rather than left, the room; within ten seconds of his going the slamming of the front door announced that he had left the house. For some seconds Elmore sat still; then, getting up from his chair, began to fill a pipe with tobacco. Miss Joyce put her head into the room, noiselessly, unexpectedly, as she seemed to have a trick of doing. "Was that Mr. Dale? I thought it might be you. Has he been in here?" "He has. You come in and take away the breakfast things; I've had all I want to eat." Coming in, she began to do as he had said, talking, as she put the things together, in a half whisper which recalled Mr. Dale's staccato undertones. It seemed to be a house of whispers. "What did he say to you?" "He came to offer me a tip." "A tip?"