“I didn’t think of it or I should,” he admitted. “But I hope you will come down to the Beresfords. I’d love to take you out in my yacht—that is, if you like yachting.” “That’s a promise,” the girl declared. “If I come I shall hold you to it.” When tea was removed and cigarettes were alight she returned to the subject of his adventure. “Yes,” Cheyne answered, “I should like to tell you the whole story if it really wouldn’t bore you. But,” he hesitated for a second, “you won’t mind my saying that it is simply desperately private. No hint of it must get out.” Her face clouded. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I don’t want to hear it if it’s a secret. It doesn’t concern me anyway.” “Oh, but it does—now,” Cheyne protested. “If I don’t tell you now you will think that I am a criminal with something to hide, and I think I couldn’t bear that.” “No,” she contradicted, “you think that you are in my debt and bound to tell me.” He laughed. “Not at all,” he retorted, “since contradiction is the order of the day. If that was it I could easily have put you off with the yarn I told the doctor. I want to tell you because I think you’d be interested, and because it really would be such a relief to discuss the thing with some rational being.” She looked at him keenly as she demanded: “Honor bright?” “Honor bright,” he repeated, meeting her eyes. “Then you may,” she decided. “You may also smoke a pipe if you like.” “The story opens about six weeks ago with a visit to Plymouth,” he began, and he told her of his adventure in the Edgecombe Hotel, of the message about the burglary, of his ride home and what he found there, and of the despondent detective and his failure to discover the criminals. Then he described what took place on the launch _Enid_, his search of the coast towns and discovery of the trail of the men, his following them to London and to the Hopefield Avenue house, his adventure therein, the blow on his head, his coming to himself to find the tracing gone, his crawl to the fence and his relief at the sound of her footsteps approaching. She listened with an ever-increasing eagerness, which rose to positive excitement as he reached the climax of the story. “My word!” she cried with shining eyes when he had finished. “To think of such things happening here in sober old London in the twentieth century! Why, it’s like the _Arabian Nights_! Who would believe such a story if they read it in a book? _What_ fun! And you have no idea what the tracing was?” “No more than you have, Miss Merrill.” “It was a cipher,” she declared breathlessly. “A cipher telling where there was buried treasure! Isn’t that all that is wanted to make it complete?” “Now you’re laughing at me,” he complained. “Don’t you really believe my story?”