Carpentaria unlocked his front-door and entered the hall of his dwelling, and then locked and bolted the door. He was not in the habit of either locking or bolting his front-door; the idea of so securing a house which stood in the middle of half a square mile of private property, well guarded at all its gates, seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless he did it, and he could have given no reason for doing it. He imagined that he heard footsteps in the passage leading from the hall to the kitchen, and he quickly turned on the electric light and looked down the passage. But there was nothing. He decided that he was very nervous and impressionable that night. The servants had, doubtless, long since gone to bed. He extinguished the light and made his way upstairs to his study, and sat down in his chair--the famous chair in which he composed his famous melodies. The faint illumination of the May night made the principal objects in the room vaguely visible. He could discern the pale square of the framed autograph letter from President McKinley which hung on the opposite wall. He tried to collect his ideas and think in a logical sequence. Then, again, he fancied that he heard footsteps, and that he saw a dim form near the door. “Who’s that?” he cried sharply. “It’s only me,” answered a woman’s voice, and the electricity was at the same instant switched on. Juliette stood there. “Why are you sitting in the dark, Carlos?” she demanded. Carlos was her pet name for him. “I don’t know,” he said lamely. “My poor dear,” she smiled, approaching him. “I haven’t said good-night to you.” She put her long and elegant hands on his shoulders, as was her wont each evening, and kissed him on both cheeks in her French fashion. The affection between Carlos and his half-French half-sister was real and profound. He liked her for her Parisian daintiness, and for the eminently practical qualities which she possessed in common with most Frenchwomen, and also because she regarded him as a genius. To-night he thought she was sweeter and more sisterly than ever. “Good-night,” she said, and her voice trembled, and a slight humidity glistened in her eyes. “Good-night,” he responded. And she tripped off, swinging the perfect skirt of her black _mousseline_ dress round the edge of the door. “She’s mightily excited to-night,” he murmured to himself; and he reflected, as all men reflect from time to time, that women are strange and incomprehensible, a device invented by Providence to keep the wit of man well sharpened by constant employment.