"I had the very devil of a squeak for it," he went on. "I did the hurdles over two or three garden-walls, but so did the flyer who was on my tracks, and he drove me back into the straight and down to High Street like any lamplighter. If he had only had the breath to sing out it would have been all up with me then; as it was I pulled off my coat the moment I was round the corner, and took a ticket for it at the Empress Rooms." "I suppose you had one for the dance that was going on," I growled. Nor would it have been a coincidence for Raffles to have had a ticket for that or any other entertainment of the London season. "I never asked what the dance was," he returned. "I merely took the opportunity of revising my toilet, and getting rid of that rather distinctive overcoat, which I shall call for now. They're not too particular at such stages of such proceedings, but I've no doubt I should have seen someone I knew if I had none right in. I might even have had a turn, if only I had been less uneasy about you, Bunny." "It was like you to come back to help me out," said I. "But to lie to me, and to inveigle me with your lies into that house of all houses--that was not like you, Raffles--and I never shall forgive it or you!" Raffles took my arm again. We were near the High Street gates of Palace Gardens, and I was too miserable to resist an advance which I meant never to give him an opportunity to repeat. "Come, come, Bunny, there wasn't much inveigling about it," said he. "I did my level best to leave you behind, but you wouldn't listen to me." "If you had told me the truth I should have listened fast enough," I retorted. "But what's the use of talking? You can boast of your own adventures after you bolted. You don't care what happened to me." "I cared so much that I came back to see." "You might have spared yourself the trouble! The wrong had been done. Raffles--Raffles--don't you know who she was?" It was my hand that gripped his arm once more. "I guessed," he answered, gravely enough even for me. "It was she who saved me, not you," I said. "And that is the bitterest part of all!" Yet I told him that part with a strange sad pride in her whom I had lost--through him--forever. As I ended we turned into High Street; in the prevailing stillness, the faint strains of the band reached us from the Empress Rooms; and I hailed a crawling hansom as Raffles turned that way. "Bunny," said he, "it's no use saying I'm sorry. Sorrow adds insult in a case like this--if ever there was or will be such another! Only believe me, Bunny, when I swear to you that I had not the smallest shadow of a suspicion that she was in the house." And in my heart of hearts I did believe him; but I could not bring myself to say the words. "You told me yourself that you had written to her in the country," he pursued.