Arthur Agar's life had been passed in eminently pleasant places. The seamy side of existence had always been carefully hidden from his eyes. He therefore did not recognise this strange sense which had leapt into his being--the sense of superhuman, physical, mortal revulsion. He was divided between two instincts. One side of his nature urged him to shriek like a woman. Had he followed the other, he would have rushed at this man, whom he had never seen before, seeking to do him bodily harm. He would not have paused to reason that in anything like a struggle he would stand no chance against the sinewy, dark-eyed soldier who stood watching him. For there are moments even in this age of self-suppression when we do not pause to think, when he who cannot swim will leap into deep water to save another. This sudden unreasoning hatred, so foreign to his gentle nature, seemed to stagger Arthur Agar as the sudden intimation of some mortal disease lurking in his own being would have done. He gripped the back of the spindle-legged chair, and could find no word to say. The stranger it was who spoke. “I presume,” he said, with a pleasant smile, in a voice so musical that his hearer breathed suddenly as if his head had been lifted from water, “I presume that you are Mr. Arthur Agar?” While he spoke he looked past Arthur, out of the silken-draped window. He did not seem to like the glance of this young man, for even the most practical of us have a conscience at times. “Yes.” The new-comer laid his walking-stick on the table, and turned to make sure that the door was closed. “I knew your step-brother,” he explained, “Jem Agar, in India.” Then the instinct of the gentleman and the host asserted itself over and above the throbbing hatred. “Ah! Will you sit down?” The stranger took the proffered chair and laid aside his hat. But neither of them was at ease. There was a subtle suggestion that they had met before and quarrelled--vague, unreasoning, quite impossible if you will; but it was there. They were as men meeting again with a past between them (too full of strong passions ever to be forgotten) which each was trying in vain to ignore. “I have brought home a few belongings of his,” the stranger went on to explain. “Just a port-manteau with some clothes and things.” He paused, and drew a small packet from the pocket of a covert-coat which he carried over his arm. “Here,” he went on, “are some papers of his--a diary and one or two letters. The rest of the things are at my hotel in town.” Arthur took the packet, and, still in the same dreamy, unreal way, opened it. He turned to the last entry--dated six weeks back. “Got out of bed at five, but nothing to be seen in the valley. I feel a bit chippy this morning. If nothing turns up to-day shall begin to feel uneasy. The men seem all right. They are plucky little fellows.”