"Your interviews with ladies are liable to such dramatic endings: I seriously object to fainting, and I remained here, as you must know, not because I cared to listen to you, but because of Millie's presence. I think it took you half an hour to talk Leslie into a dead faint yesterday, and as nearly as I can guess at time, one of your minutes must be gone. You have just four minutes in which to reduce me to silence." "You are very bitter, Winnie," he said sadly. "I am bowed down with grief--that you know. I am also burdened with such a weight of trouble as I pray Heaven you may never suffer. Will you let me tell you all the truth; will you listen and judge between Leslie Warburton and me?" She drew herself very erect, and turned to face him fully, thus shutting from her view the door behind Alan. "No," she answered, "I will listen to nothing from you concerning Leslie. Without knowing the cause, I know you are her enemy. If I ever learn why you hate her so, I will hear it from her, not from you. Leslie is not a child; and you must have said bitterly cruel words before you left her in a dead faint on that library floor last night--" A very distinct cough interrupted her speech, and they both turned, to meet the respectful gaze of a jaunty-looking stranger, who said, as he advanced into the room: "Pardon me; the servant showed me in somewhat unceremoniously, supposing the room unoccupied. I was instructed to wait here for Mr. Warburton." Winnie was first to recover herself. Turning to Alan, she murmured politely: "I think my time has expired; good evening, Mr. Warburton." As she swept from the room, the stranger approached Alan, saying: "This, then, is Mr. Warburton. My name is Grip, sir; Augustus Grip." CHAPTER XXXVIII. MR. GRIP FINDS A "SKELETON". This sudden appearance of Mr. Grip was not precisely to Alan Warburton's taste, and he eyed his visitor with a somewhat haughty air, while he said: "Mr. Grip is prompt, to say the least. I believe that the hour--" "Hour appointed, between three and four--precisely, sir; _pre_cisely. But my time's valuable, Mr. Warburton; _valuable_, sir! And it's better too early than too late. Everything's cut and dried, and nothing else on hand for this hour; couldn't afford to waste it." Mr. Grip's words fell from his lips like hailstones from a November sky--rap, rap, rap; patter, patter; swift, sharp, decisive. And Alan was not slow to realize that all the combined dignity of all the combined Warburtons, would be utterly lost upon this plebeian. Plebeian, Mr. Grip evidently was, from the crown of his head to the tips of his too highly polished, creaking boots. Vulgarity reveled in the plaid of his jaunty business suit, flaunted in the links of his glittering watch guard, and gleamed in the folds of his gorgeous neck gear. You smelled it in his ambrosial locks; you saw it in his self-satisfied face, and heard it in his inharmonious voice.