"I am not going to tax you very severely," he said. "I am writing a critical paper on the armaments of the world for a European review. I had letters of introduction to Mr. C., and he gave me a great deal of valuable information. There were one or two points, however, on which he was scarcely clear, and in the course of conversation he mentioned your husband's name as being the greatest living authority upon those points. He offered to give me a letter to him, but I thought it would perhaps scarcely be wise. I fancied, too, you might be inclined, for reasons which we need not enlarge upon, to help me." For a simple request Lady Deringham's manner of receiving it was certainly strange; she was suddenly white almost to the lips. A look of positive fear was in her eyes. The frank cordiality, the absolute kindliness with which she had welcomed her visitor was gone. She looked at him with new eyes; the old mistrust was born again. Once more he was the man to be feared and dreaded above all other men; yet she would not give way altogether. He was watching her narrowly, and she made a brave effort to regain her composure. "But do you not know," she said hesitatingly, "that my husband is a great invalid? It is a very painful subject for all of us, but we fear that his mind is not what it used to be. He has never been the same man since that awful night in the Solent. His work is more of a hobby with him; it would not be at all reliable for reference." "Not all of it, certainly," he assented. "Mr. C. explained that to me. What I want is an opportunity to discriminate. Some would be very useful to me--the majority, of course, worse than useless. The particular information which I want concerns the structural defects in some of the new battleships. It would save an immense amount of time to get this succinctly." She looked away from him, still agitated. "There are difficulties," she murmured; "serious ones. My husband has an extraordinary idea as to the value of his own researches, and he is always haunted by a fear lest some one should break in and steal his papers. He would not suffer me to glance at them; and the room is too closely guarded for me to take you there without his knowledge. He is never away himself, and one of the keepers is stationed outside." "The wit of a woman," Mr. Sabin said softly, "is all-conquering."