I stood at the door and watched the tail light of the motor disappear down the drive, show for an instant a spark by the dilapidated lodge and then go out entirely. * * * * * The second part of the story begins about here. The first part, as you have seen, has been purely political: the rest is romance, intermingled with crime. It is a little late to bring in a hero, but to have done it earlier would have spoiled the story, besides being distinctly untruthful. And I suppose a real novelist would have had the hero turn out to be the sunburned gentleman of some pages before; but the fact is he wasn't, and I never saw the sunburned gentleman again. Well, after Bagsby left, and I had examined the supper in the hamper and lighted more candles in the drawing-room, I began to wish we had not cut the telephone wire so soon. It was perfectly dark, and any one could step in through the windows--open to air the house--and cut my throat and take my string of pearls which Father had had matched for me and walk away calmly and be safe ten feet from the house in the undergrowth. And then Bagsby's ghost began to walk in my mind and I quite lost sight of the fact that it was not authenticated. It was blowing by that time, and every joint of the rheumatic old house creaked and groaned. The candles flickered and nearly went out, and the motto cards began to fly around the room as if carried by invisible fingers. One of them said, "You have been weighed and found wanting," and another one, "Beware!" They had all the effect of spirit messages on me. When I tried to close the windows I found them stuck in their dilapidated frames. I wanted desperately to hide in a corner behind one of the high-backed chairs, but it was dusty there and hardly dignified for a person who was abducting the Prime Minister. And then it would be ignominious to faint there and have some one peer over the back and say: "Why, here she is!" So, to divert my mind from ghosts and gentlemen burglars who steal pictures, I began to investigate the hamper. There were _pâté_ and salad and sandwiches and quite a lot of stuff. But all at once I remembered that Daphne had given me the small silver and that I had laid it on my bed and left it there. And most of the provisions were too messy for a P.M. to manage with his fingers. Luckily, I remembered something Violet had said when Daphne gave me the silver. "Personally," she had announced, "I am not in favor of feeding him at all. Or else I would give him prison fare. But if you're going to be mushy over him you'll probably find some dishes and forks in a little closet over the dining-room fireplace. They were kept there to use if Basil ever went down for the shooting, and I dare say they are still there."