"Very good, sir," and he retired. As he disappeared downstairs he said to himself: "Ten to one there's a woman in the case. That ain't at all like Sir Raife, leastways, not as I have known him all these years." Pulman sighed a sigh of wisdom as he opened the door in the basement on his way up the area-steps to a neighbouring hostelry. Left to himself, and secure from intrusion, Raife rose from his chair and crossed the room to a small black cabinet of exquisite design. Producing a tiny bunch of keys he opened the door of the cabinet, and from a small door within, which sprung open as he touched a spring, he took forth a richly-chased and jewelled miniature frame. The miniature portrait was of Gilda Tempest. He gazed at it, and, as is the wont of young men who gaze at the portraits of their lady love in the seclusion of their own room, he touched it lightly with his lips. Then a sudden twinge seemed to attack him, and a pained expression pervaded his face. He looked at it lovingly, and muttering: "Ah! If I only knew. What is this unfathomable mystery?"--he replaced it in the drawer. Raife sat long and moodily. He helped himself freely with the brandy and soda, but the stimulant did not soothe his troubled mind. After a certain hour the streets of St James's are silent, and Duke Street, where Raife's rooms were situated, is not an exception. To-night the very quietude, which is generally desirable, oppressed him further. Rising again from his chair, he removed his dressing-gown and donned a long overcoat and a golf-cap. Choosing a stout walking-stick, he went out into the night. The streets of St James's are well guarded by police, but the city nightbird is witty in his ways, at the same time, evasive and elusive. As Raife swung into Jermyn Street, he was conscious of a figure that slouched behind him. Stopping abruptly at the corner of St James's Street, he wheeled around to find that the figure was now walking in the other direction, or rather did he appear to crawl. Raife walked down St James's Street, and at the bottom he chartered a passing taxi. Chance enters largely into the movements of the lovelorn mind, and chance impelled him to direct the driver to Hammersmith. At the wide junction of streets called the Broadway, he dismissed the taxi and wandered around for a while. He noticed another taxi pull up almost immediately after his own, and a familiar figure in a long coat and flowing tie, got out and crossed to a coffee-stall. Curiosity prompted him to follow. Some heavy traffic impeded his progress for about half a minute, and when he reached the coffee-stall the figure had disappeared. He called for a cup of coffee which he did not drink. The trouble entered his mind again and he soliloquised: "Was he being shadowed? If so, why? Who was this mysterious figure, and where had they met before?"