"Is there nothing strange," I asked, "in a lady going into a confectioner's shop at such a distance from home, and there meeting a gentleman, with whom she remains conversing for a quarter of an hour?" "There's nothing strange in it to me," replied the detective. "You don't know the goings-on of women, sir, nor the artfulness of them. Many a lady will do more than that, just for the purpose of a harmless bit of flirtation; and they like it all the better because of the secresy and the spice of danger. No, sir, I don't see anything in it." "Describe the man to me," I said. He did so, and in the description he gave I recognised the scoundrel, Mr. Pelham. Even now this shameful woman, married to my father, was carrying on an intrigue with her infamous lover. There was no time to lose. I must strike at once. My first business was with the woman. If I could prevail upon her to take the initiative, and leave my father quietly without an open scandal--if I could induce her to set a price upon her absence from the country, I had no doubt that I could secure to her a sufficient sum to enable her to live in comfort, even in affluence, out of England. Then I would trust to time to heal my father's wounds. It was a cruel blow for a son to inflict upon his father, but it was not to be borne that the matter should be allowed to continue in its present shape. Not only shame and dishonour, but other evils might spring from it. Within a few hours I struck the first blow. I asked her for an interview. She called me into her boudoir. I should have preferred a more open room, but she sent word by a maid as treacherous as herself, whom she doubtless paid well, that if I wished to speak to her on that day it must be where she wished. I presented myself, and closed the door behind me. "Really!" she said, with her sweetest smile. "This is to be a very, very private conversation! Hand me my smelling bottle, Frederick. Not that one; the diamond and the turquoise one your father gave me yesterday. There are no bounds to my husband's generosity." "It is a pity," I said, "that such a nature as his should be trifled with."