He staggered back, his face working terribly, and fell in a huddled heap upon the floor. I was just opening my mouth to call for Rolston when there came a thunderous knocking upon the side door of the house. I ran into the dimly lit passage and as I did so Rolston flitted out of the bar door and stood beside me. "I have heard everything," he whispered, "but what, what is this?" He pointed to the door, and as he did so there was again the thunder of the knocker and the whirr of the electric bell. Hardly knowing what I did I shot back the bolts at top and bottom, turned the heavy key in its lock and opened the door. Outside in the moonlight a figure was standing, a man in a heavy fur coat, carrying a suitcase in his left hand. "What the devil--" I was beginning, when he pushed past me and came into the hall. Then I saw, with a leap of all my pulses, that it was Lord Arthur Winstanley. CHAPTER NINE It was four o'clock in the morning. A bitter wind had risen and was wailing around the "Golden Swan," interspersed with heavy storms of hail which rattled on roof and windows. Outside the tempest shrieked and was accompanied by a vast, humming, harp-like noise as it flung itself against the lattice-work of the towers and vibrated over Richmond like a chorus of giant AEolian harps. Arthur and I sat in the shabby sitting-room, which had been the theater of so much emotion that night, and stared at each other with troubled faces. There was a little pattering noise, and Bill Rolston came in, closing the door carefully behind him. "He wants you to go up to him, Sir Thomas. You told me to use my own discretion. Since we carried him up and I gave him the bromides, I haven't left his bedside. I talked to him in his own language, but he wouldn't say a word until I threw off every disguise and told him who I really was and who you were also." "But, Rolston, you may have spoiled everything!" He shook his head. "You don't know what I know. Now that he's aware you are of his own rank, and that I am your lieutenant, his life is absolutely your forfeit. If you were to tell him to commit suicide he would do it at once as the most natural thing in the world, to preserve his honor. He is your man from this moment, Sir Thomas, just as I am." "Then I'll go up. Arthur, you don't mind?" "Mind! I thought I brought a bomb-shell into your house to-night, and so I have too, but to find all this going on simply robs me of speech. Meanwhile, if you will introduce me to this Asiatic gentleman who speaks such excellent English, and whom, from repute I guess to be Mr. William Rolston, I daresay we can amuse ourselves during the remainder of this astonishing night. And," he continued, "if there is such a thing as a ham upon the premises, some thick slices grilled upon this excellent fire, and some cool ale in a pewter--"