Informing the cabman that I should return to the city by train, I paid the admission fee and, declining the services of a guide, entered the grounds, keeping my eyes wide open, as you may suppose, for the man I had come to meet. Entering the ruins proper by the Marine Gate, I made my way direct to the _rendezvous_ named upon the card, and, surely, never in the history of that ancient place had a man passed along its streets on a stranger mission. I need not have hurried, however, for on reaching the Forum, whence a full view of the Temple can be obtained, I found that I had the place to myself. Having satisfied myself on this point, I sat down on a block of stone and collected my thoughts in preparation for the coming interview. Times out of number I consulted my watch; and when the hands pointed to four o'clock I felt as if the quarter of an hour I had spent there had in reality been an hour. It was a breathless afternoon; beyond the city the blue hills seemed to float and quiver in mid-air. A lark was trilling in the sky above me, and so still was it that the rumbling of a wagon on the white road half a mile or so away could be distinctly heard. "My dear Mr. Forrester, allow me to wish you a very good afternoon; I need scarcely say how delighted I am to meet you!" said a voice behind me; and, turning, I found myself face to face with Pharos. CHAPTER VI. Anxious as I had been to see him, and eagerly as I had sought his presence, now that Pharos stood before me I was as frightened of him as I had been on the night I had first set eyes on him at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle. I stood looking at his queer, ungainly figure for some seconds, trying to make up my mind how I should enter upon what I had to say to him. That he was aware of my embarrassment I could see, and from the way his lips curled I guessed that he was deriving considerable satisfaction from it. His face was as crafty and his eyes as wicked as ever I had seen them; but I noticed that on this occasion he leaned more heavily upon his stick than usual. "I presume it is to my kind friend Sir George Legrath that I am indebted for the pleasure of this interview," he said, after the short pause that followed his introductory speech; "for I need not flatter myself you will believe me when I say that I was fully aware, even before I met you in Lady Medenham's house the other day, that we should be talking together in this Temple within a week." The palpable absurdity of this speech gave me just the opportunity for which I was waiting. "Monsieur Pharos," I said, with as much sternness as I could manage to throw into my voice, "successful as you have hitherto been in deceiving me, it is not the least use your attempting to do so on the present occasion. I am quite willing to state that it was my friend Sir George Legrath who put me in the way of communicating with you. I called upon him on Tuesday morning and obtained your address from him." He nodded his head.