What Edith Varney knew or suspected concerning him, he could not tell. That she knew something, that she suspected something, had been evident, but whatever her knowledge and suspicion, they were not sufficiently powerful or telling to prevent her from returning love for love, kiss for kiss. But did she love him in spite of her knowledge and suspicion? The problem was too great for his solution then. These things passed through his mind as he stood there by the window, with his hand on his revolver, waiting. It was all he could do. Sometimes even to the most fiery and the most alert of soldiers comes the conviction that there is nothing to do but wait. And if he thinks of it, he will sympathise with the women who are left behind in times of war, who have little to do but wait. The room had suddenly become his world, the walls his horizon, the ceiling his sky. At any exit he would find the way barred. Why had they left him in the room, free, armed, his revolver in his hand? None but the bravest would have entered upon such a career as he had chosen. His nerves were like steel in the presence of danger. He had trembled before the woman in the garden a moment since; the stone walls of the house were no more rigidly composed than he in the drawing-room now. It came to him that there was nothing left but one great battle in that room unless they shot him from behind door or window or portière, giving him no chance. If they did confront him openly he would show them that if he had chosen the Secret Service and the life of a spy he could fight and die like a man and a soldier. He held some lives within the chamber of his revolver, and they should pay did they give him but a chance. Indeed, they were already giving him a chance, he thought to himself as he waited and listened. He was utterly unable to divine why he was at liberty in the room, and why he was left alone, or what was toward. In the very midst of these crowding and tumultuous thoughts which ran through his mind in far, far less time than it has taken to record them, he heard a noise at the window at the farther side of the room, as if some one fumbled at the catch. Instantly Thorne shrank back behind the portières of the window he was guarding, not completely concealing himself but sufficiently hid as to be unobserved except by careful scrutiny in the dim light. Once more he clutched the butt of his revolver swinging at his waist. He bent his body slightly, and even the thought of Edith Varney passed from his mind. He stood ready, powerful, concentrated, determined, confronting an almost certain enemy with the fierce heart and envenomed glance of the fighter at bay. He had scarcely assumed this position when the window was opened, and a man was thrust violently through into the room. At the first glance, Thorne as yet unseen, recognised the newcomer as his elder brother, Henry Dumont. Unlike the two famous brothers of the parable, these two loved each other.