Flushed and bewildered, Miles was halfway home before he regained the use of reason. At a clap the thought overtook him, What if this were Tony’s “foreign-looking” enemy? “I’d better make sure first,” he told himself; and sitting by the library fire, he kept as thoughtful a silence as his grandfather and the sailor, perched, with intent faces, over their chessmen. At bedtime, he stepped across into Florio’s little room. “News for you,” he began quietly, and continued in an undertone. Florio’s hard gray eyes watched him sharply across the candle flame, with a look which meant, if anything, impatient anger. An explosive whisper was the only comment: “Damn the coolie!” Pocketing his big fists with one energetic shove, the sailor stared down at the floor. “Thanks all the same, of course,” he said moodily. “Quite right. That’s the chap I was afraid might turn up. Thanks. Don’t speak of him to anybody else, till I say so, will you? Not a word? That’s right.” He sat down on his bed, and unwound his leggings, neatly, methodically, as though the affair were dropped. In some surprise, Miles continued it. “Then I’ll do my turns to-night, and afterward--the lamps.” “Eh?” The sailor looked up, half startled, half chagrined. “What’s that?--Oh,” he smiled indulgently, “not much! Get to bed, boy. What, I’m not afraid of _that_ swine! Alone, isn’t he? Let me lay aboard him once, that’s all! Can catch! No, I won’t hear a word of it. Your watch below. To bed!” By no persuasion would he forego his self-set labor, or accept company, even for the single night. “Dear chap, I have _some_ pride,” he reiterated; and as he offered no confidences, Miles left him with disappointment. Yet his cool, stubborn attitude seemed, in a way, admirable; and--to judge from deep, contented breathing, across the corridor--he slept like a child. Somewhere after midnight, Miles woke uneasily. Long security had broken the habit; but now he sat up once more, to watch the distant light of Tony’s lantern jerking in fitful eclipse among the firs. Near the second tower it disappeared, as usual; and as usual, after a short pause shining out again, returned down river, skipping and winking. Suddenly it went out, and shone no more. Miles crept from bed to window, and watched. He counted off three, four, five minutes, and saw not another gleam. Dismayed, blaming himself for suffering Tony to have his way, he wrestled into clothes, stole downstairs, and raced through the sharp night air. Thin fog, shoulder-high, had just begun to billow along the ground, concealing and magnifying, even by starlight. Each tussock, each baby fir, loomed like a waiting figure or stretched like a dead body. Silent over the wet grass, Miles ran downhill toward the spot where the light had ceased.