‘Ladies should not be kept waiting, Lord Arthur,’ said Mr. Podgers, with his sickly smile. ‘The fair sex is apt to be impatient.’ Lord Arthur’s finely-chiselled lips curled in petulant disdain. The poor Duchess seemed to him of very little importance at that moment. He walked across the room to where Mr. Podgers was standing, and held his hand out. ‘Tell me what you saw there,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth. I must know it. I am not a child.’ Mr. Podgers’s eyes blinked behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and he moved uneasily from one foot to the other, while his fingers played nervously with a flash watch-chain. ‘What makes you think that I saw anything in your hand, Lord Arthur, more than I told you?’ ‘I know you did, and I insist on your telling me what it was. I will pay you. I will give you a cheque for a hundred pounds.’ The green eyes flashed for a moment, and then became dull again. ‘Guineas?’ said Mr. Podgers at last, in a low voice. ‘Certainly. I will send you a cheque to-morrow. What is your club?’ ‘I have no club. That is to say, not just at present. My address is—, but allow me to give you my card’; and producing a bit of gilt-edge pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Podgers handed it, with a low bow, to Lord Arthur, who read on it, _Mr. SEPTIMUS R. PODGERS_ _Professional Cheiromantist_ 103_a_ _West Moon Street_ ‘My hours are from ten to four,’ murmured Mr. Podgers mechanically, ‘and I make a reduction for families.’ ‘Be quick,’ cried Lord Arthur, looking very pale, and holding his hand out. Mr. Podgers glanced nervously round, and drew the heavy _portière_ across the door. ‘It will take a little time, Lord Arthur, you had better sit down.’ ‘Be quick, sir,’ cried Lord Arthur again, stamping his foot angrily on the polished floor. Mr. Podgers smiled, drew from his breast-pocket a small magnifying glass, and wiped it carefully with his handkerchief. ‘I am quite ready,’ he said. CHAPTER II TEN minutes later, with face blanched by terror, and eyes wild with grief, Lord Arthur Savile rushed from Bentinck House, crushing his way through the crowd of fur-coated footmen that stood round the large striped awning, and seeming not to see or hear anything. The night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the square flared and flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever, and his forehead burned like fire. On and on he went, almost with the gait of a drunken man. A policeman looked curiously at him as he passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for alms, grew frightened, seeing misery greater than his own. Once he stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke from his trembling lips.