"My friend," I said, "betray me twenty million times if you can bring me such happiness as you have brought. Besides, it wasn't a betrayal, it was a great brain leading a smaller one to its appointed goal." We talked a little more, he drank tea, he smoked, and, to my growing discomfort, I found in him the same note of pessimism and apprehension that Morse could not conceal, and Rolston himself had partially revealed. "But I _won't_ believe that any harm can come to Miss Morse," I said, almost angrily. The thin lips smiled. "That I never said, Sir Thomas. There are no indications of that. You and your lady are in peril, but you will win through." "Confound it, man, your liver must be out of order. It seems to me that captivity in this magnificent bird-cage has the same effect on every one. I shall get Morse to come and hunt with me in the Shires. I've got a nice little box in Gloucestershire, close to Chipping Norton, and by Jove, Pu-Yi, I'll mount you and give you a run with the Heythrope. You talk as if you actually knew something. As if you had information of a calamity." "I hear it in the wind," he said strangely, and his voice was like a withered leaf blown before the wind. Then he left me. I dined with Juanita and her father. Bill was asked too, and he kept my girl, and sometimes even Mr. Morse, in fits of laughter with stories of his short but erratic career, and especially a racy account of his illicit opium-selling down below. "You see, sir," he said, "you brought it on yourself, by kidnaping me in the first instance. I had to get my own back." Morse's face clouded over for a moment. "It was a disgraceful thing to do," he said. "I quite admit it, but had the necessity arisen I'd have kidnaped George Robey or the Prince of Wales," and from that moment always I seemed to see that a faint but perceptible shadow was creeping over his spirits. We had a little music, in a charming room built for the purpose. Juanita played upon the guitar and sang little Spanish love songs. Bill "obliged" with a ditty which he said was a favorite of the revered Charles Lamb, which seemed to consist entirely of the following lines: "Diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John Went to bed with his breeches on." I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all--and to me privately in the passage--she went to bed quite happy and cheerful. About half-past ten Bill slipped off and I remained to smoke a final cigar with Morse. "I'm low, Thomas," he said, "I'm very low to-night." I made him take a little whisky and potash--a thing he rarely did. "It's the unnatural life, sir, that you've condemned yourself to recently. You come out of this and hunt with me in Gloucestershire and I'll protect you as well as you're protected here, and you'll get as right as rain." "You're very kind," he replied, "but--take care of her, Kirby, for God's sake, take care of her. She'll have no one else in the world but you if they get me or Pu-Yi."