"`And I swear I'll--' what?" said Chester to himself. "Shoot me? Well, let him. There, it's all over. I can't go away; I must see this out to the very end." Chester followed the pair with the full intention of demanding an explanation and having a scene with the elder brother, for his resentment seemed to be making the blood bubble up through his veins. They were walking through the Palace Yard, and directly after they crossed the road and went up St James's Street, talking angrily; and he was just about to join them when he saw the younger turn angrily off into the road, as if about to separate, but in an instant the elder had him by the arm and after a faint resistance led him back on to the pavement, where Chester was awaiting them. "Mr Clareborough," he said sharply, and both brothers turned upon him in surprise. "Yes; what is it?" cried the elder. "Oh, the man in the wrong box! Come along, boy." He turned short off, and before Chester could recover from his surprise, the brothers had passed through the swinging doors of one of the clubhouses and disappeared in the great hall. Chester was about to follow, but checked himself upon the threshold as the question arose in his mind, What for? To demand an explanation of their conduct toward him. Well, he felt that he might demand it, but he knew that they would preserve the same attitude as before, and treat him with contempt--treat him as if he were some half-witted being who claimed acquaintance; and how could he get people to believe in his strange story--how could he advance his position with respect to Marion? He calmed down as quickly as he had grown excited and began to feel that to force a quarrel in the club to which these men belonged could have but one ending, that of the police being called in and his being ejected. "And what then?" he asked himself. "Possibly the whole business would be dragged into the police court, then into the daily papers, and if Marion were ready to continue her intimacy with the man who had saved her brother's life, would she not be hurt and annoyed with him for forcing into publicity an affair which the conduct of all concerned showed them to be eager to keep hushed up?" Chester walked down St James's Street again, with the intention of cooling his burning head in the quiet gloom of the Park; but he altered his mind and turned off to his left, along Pall Mall, re-entered his club and went up to the smoking-room, which proved to be a little more full than before, but this did not trouble him now. He sat down and took a cigar and began smoking, thinking, trying to argue out the reason for the strange behaviour of these Clareboroughs. He could understand that there had been a desperate quarrel, resulting in the use of the revolver, and he was ready to grant that the elder brother's conduct toward Marion had been the moving cause for that. But he felt convinced that there was something more behind; else why all the secrecy?