The man Ben sniffed and, muttering evilly, slouched away, leaving his fellow to sigh gustily and stare up at the moon; a square-shouldered, bullet-headed man who, leering up at Diana's chaste loveliness, began to scrape and pick at his teeth with a thumb nail. And then Anthony sneezed violently. The man stood rigid, thumb at mouth, peering. "'Oo's there?" he demanded gruffly, and began to advance, head bowed and arms squared in a posture of offence. In one moment, as it seemed, Anthony was upon him; ensued a scrape of feet, a thudding of blows, a strangled cry, and they were down, rolling upon the gravel and with never a chance for me to get in a stroke with my unwieldy hedge stake. At last Anthony arose, panting a little and smiling grimly, looking from the man's inert form to his own bleeding knuckles. "This," he whispered breathlessly, "this is doing me--power o' good! Toughish customer--forced to give him--tap with pistol butt. How about the fellow Ben?" "No, no, Anthony! The door yonder--quick--this way!" I remember a long, dim-lit passage, a narrow stair, and we found ourselves in a broad and spacious hall where shaded lamps burned and nude statues gleamed against rich hangings. Borne to our ears came a jingle of glasses, the line of a song and boisterous laughter. A door opened suddenly and a man stepped into the hall, his bulky figure outlined against the lights of the room behind him, but he paused upon the threshold to glance back and flourish something triumphantly. "Treasure trove!" he laughed. "The memento of a delightful hour!" With the words upon his lips he turned, and I recognised Captain Danby. He was halfway across the hall when he espied us and stopped to glare in wide-eyed amazement; something fluttered to the floor and he began to retreat softly and slowly before us, but Anthony was pointing down at a small bundle of lace with hand that shook and wavered strangely. "Look at it, Perry--look!" he muttered. "Look, man! Why--God's death, Perry--it's her lace scarf--belongs to my Loveliness, Perry--should know it anywhere--it's--hers, man--and here! Oh, damnation!" In a flash he had picked it up and, roaring like a madman, hurled himself against the closing door. For moment was a desperate scuffling and frenzied straining and gasping, a creaking of stout panels, then the door swung violently open and we burst into the room. A disordered supper table littered with bottles, three or four breathless gentlemen who panted and glared, and a curtained doorway in one corner; all this I was aware of, though my gaze never left the face of him who stood before this curtained door, a tall, slender man very elegantly calm and wholly unperturbed, except for the slight frown that puckered his thick brows,--a handsome face the paler by contrast with its dark and glossy hair. For a tense moment there was silence but for Anthony's loud and irregular breathing; when at last he spoke his voice sounded wholly unfamiliar: