The writing-chair he had vacated on the previous night, before going to bed, stood there, the silk cushion still crushed just as he had risen from it. His big briar-pipe lay just as he had knocked it out and placed it in the little bowl of beaten brass which he used as an ash-tray. The newspapers which he had read were, as usual, flung upon the floor, while the waste-paper basket had not been emptied that morning. The servants had not dared to enter that room of disaster. Young Raife re-crossed the room, and again examined the open door of the safe. He saw that it had not been forced, but opened by a duplicate key--one that had, no doubt, been cut from a cast secretly taken of the one which his father always carried attached to his watch-chain. So well had the false key fitted that the door had yielded instantly. In the darkness in that well-remembered room, the room which he recollected as his father's den ever since he was a child, the two men-- the baronet and the burglar--had come face to face. "I wonder," Raife exclaimed, speaking to himself softly, scarce above a whisper. "I wonder if there was a recognition? The words of the poor guv'nor almost tell me that, in that critical moment, the pair, bound together in one common secret, met. They hated each other--and they killed each other! Why did the guv'nor admit that he had been a fool? Why did he wish to warn me of a trap? What trap? Surely at my age I'm not likely to fall into any trap. No," he added, with a bitter smile, "I fancy I'm a bit too wary to do that." He paced up and down the long, silent, book-lined chamber, much puzzled. As he did so, the sweet, pale, refined face of Gilda Tempest again arose before him. He had only met her casually, a few hours ago, yet, somehow why he could not explain, they had seemed to have already become old friends and, amid all his trouble, anxiety and bewilderment, he found himself wondering how she fared, and whether the dear little black pom, Snookie, was guarding his dainty little mistress. True, a black shadow had fallen upon his home, a tragic event which had rendered him a baronet, and in a few months he would be possessor of great estates, nevertheless that thought had not yet occurred to him. His only concern had been for his bereaved mother, to whom he was so devoted, and from whom his father had hidden his strange secret. Through that dark cloud of mourning, which had so suddenly enveloped him, arose the beautiful countenance of the girl into whose society chance had so suddenly thrown him, and he felt he must see her again, that he must stroll at her side once again, at all hazards.