Under that sudden cloud could I rest without looking up to inquire what it was? All I could do was to guess and guess; but I had no guilty conscience, which is the quickest of all conjecturers. If for one moment of charm, or caprice, any lure of the eye, or bewitchment of a smile, I had gone astray from my one true love, the memory would have come up at once, and suggested to my shame that I was served aright. But there had been nothing of the kind. I had only done what seemed at first the simple duty of friendship, and after that sunk my own delights in the stress of deep affliction. If for this, and no more than this, I was to be treated as a scoundrel, I had a right to know who had put that twist upon it. Therefore, on the following day, I took an early train to London, and a cab from the terminus to Hatton Garden, and found Signor Nicolo finishing at leisure a delicate and skilful breakfast. He received me very kindly, and unpinned the napkin from his Italian velvet coat, and offered me a glass of something fine, which proved a great deal too fine for me. My impatience seemed to please him, and he was in no hurry to allay it. And his first words seemed to me to contain some rather impertinent assumption. "The great point is to be calm, Mr. Cranleigh. To be quite calm, and look at things quietly--ah, yes!" "I scarcely know what you refer to, Mr. Nickols. What is there to prevent my being calm? I am simply come to ask about some friends, as a--as a matter of business. You were kind enough when I was here before----" "Come, come now. This won't do. We are not having a deal for a diamond. I know all about it, as well almost as if I had been in the thick of it. Ah, yes! But you find yourself bothered, don't you?" "Certainly, I don't like it much," I answered, as his black eyes flashed at me, and a merry smile lifted his long moustache. "I did not expect to be treated thus. And I was strongly attached to Sûr Imar." "And to _Kuban_ and _Orla_. Ah, yes, I see! And to Stepan and Allai, and all the rest. What a pity there were no ladies there! You might have become attached to them as well." "I call it very kind of you to spare me so much time," I answered rather stiffly, for I would have no vulgar chaff about Dariel; "I was almost afraid of encroaching upon business." "Duke of K---- at eleven o'clock, Serene Highness of L---- at twelve, King of the Malachites at half-past; and a bigger swell than all of them put together to a devilled bone at 1.30. Therefore we must touch the point. You want to know why our interesting friends have bolted so suddenly; and still more, why they did it without ta-ta to you. That last point I am not clear about, though I have some shrewd suspicions. But I think I can tell you why they made a brief adieu to the neighbours who never came near them. You will acknowledge that they could not be expected to stand on ceremony there."