Garratt Skinner leaned back in his chair. His eyes never left Chayne's face, his face grew set and stern. He had a dangerous look, the look of a desperate man at bay. "Then there is a certain incident to be considered which took place in the house near Weymouth. You must at times have been puzzled by it--perhaps a little alarmed too. Do you remember one evening when a whistle from the shadows on the road and a yokel's shout drove you out of Walter Hine's room, sent you creeping out of it as stealthily as you entered--nay, did more than that, for that whistle and that shout drove you out of Dorsetshire. Ah! I see you remember." Garratt Skinner indeed had often enough been troubled by the recollection of that night. The shout, the whistle ringing out so suddenly and abruptly from the darkness and the silence had struck upon his imagination and alarmed him by their mystery. Who was the man who had seen? And what had he seen? Garratt Skinner had never felt quite safe since that evening. There was some one, a stranger, going about the world with the key to his secret, even if he had not guessed the secret. "It was I who whistled. I who shouted." "You!" cried Garratt Skinner. "You!" "Yes. Sylvia was with me. You thought to do that night what you thought to do a few days ago above the Brenva ridge. Both times together we were able to hinder you. But once Sylvia hindered you alone. There is the affair of the cocaine." Chayne looked toward his wife with a look of great pride for the bravery which she had shown. She was sitting aloof in the embrasure of the window with her face averted and a hand pressed over her eyes and forehead. Chayne looked back to Garratt Skinner, and there was more anger in his face than he had ever shown. "I will never forgive you the distress you have caused to Sylvia," he said. But Garratt Skinner's eyes were upon Sylvia, and in his face, too, there was a humorous look of pride. She had courage. He remembered how she had confronted him when Walter Hine lay sick. He said no word to her, however, and again he turned to Chayne, who went on: "There is also your past career to add weight to the argument, Mr.--Strood." Point by point Chayne set out in detail the case for the prosecution. Garratt Skinner listened without interruption, but he knew that he was beaten. The evidence against him was too strong. It might not be enough legally to secure his conviction at a public trial--though even upon that question there would be the gravest doubt--but it would be enough to carry certitude to every ear which listened and to every eye which read. "The game is played out," Chayne continued. "We have Walter Hine, and we shall not let him slip back into your hands. How much of the story we shall tell him we are not yet sure--but all if it be necessary. And, if it be necessary, to others beside."