"The fact is," said Peter, a little reluctantly, "that story this morning seems to have pulled open a lot of old sores, just as it was meant to. Hare's picked up some loose odds and ends of talk about town to-day. I noticed two men hanging around here as we came in just now who didn't look right to me. I can't get it out of my head that there's something in the wind to-night, and Higginson's back of it. Anyway, there's no use of running needless risks, now that we've practically got a strangle-hold on the whole proposition." Varney glanced at his watch. "Right for you. It's too early to call yet, anyway. I'll wait." "Correct," said Peter at the door. "One last item of news. Stanhope himself, the real one, is coming to-morrow." "Here--to stay?" Peter nodded. "The caretaker of his cottage told Hare--told him not to tell a soul. But I don't believe he'll stay long. The fellow's clearly a fool as well as a dog." "We ought to warn him how things stand here," said Varney, "no matter what kind of person he is. You and I know that we 've made matters a good deal worse for him." "He's made them a good deal worse for us, also. But I'll see that he's promptly advised to leave while the leaving's good. Back in an hour at the farthest." Peter tramped off down the passageway, banging the front door behind him; and Varney was left alone in the little office to attend his return. At once it came to him that this was exactly what he had been doing ever since he had been in Hunston,--waiting for Peter. "I am the greatest waiter that the human race has yet produced," he thought, despondently, and dropping down into a chair, stared long at the shut door. What a day it had been!--beginning with cut-and-dried little plans that seemed sure, running off in the middle into black depths of hopeless complications, blossoming suddenly into unlooked-for triumph. Yes, complete triumph at last. The visit that he meant to pay a little later was merely an added precaution; he felt no doubts as to how matters would turn out now. To-morrow, the _Gazette_, Peter's paper, would set him square before all Hunston, and Mary Carstairs, sorry for the wrong she had done him, would come to the yacht as she had engaged to do. With the clairvoyance born of his swift revulsion of feeling, he knew that his victory was already won. Yet he did not feel now as a conqueror feels. In the loneliness of the tight-shut little office, he confronted the knowledge that he did not think of Uncle Elbert's daughter as his enemy, and that it mattered to him that she was to hate him and worse.... Suddenly in the entire stillness, he heard a sound close by, and straightened up sharply. Some one was gently trying the front door. He felt quite sure of it. He got up quickly and quietly, and hurried down the passageway to the front; but there was nothing to be seen.