His reply, though scarcely a direct answer to my words, still was sufficiently plain. "You and I, Mr. Tennant, will spend the night together." "Again, I ask you, what do you mean by that?" The fellow smoothed his clean-shaven chin and grinned. "I mean, Mr. Tennant, that I am beginning to suspect that it may be my painful duty to thrust myself on your society until I have ascertained what became of the woman who got into your compartment at Brighton, but who was not in it when we reached Victoria." A creepy, crawly feeling went all over me. This came of not having told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, directly the accident had happened. Already I was suspected of the worst. And by such a fellow! Already, to a certain extent, I was in his power. I did not give him the five pounds he asked. I did not make quite such an idiot of myself as that. But I gave him much more than his ancient rag was worth. He rattled the coins, gold coins, together in the palms of his hands; he chuckled at the sound of them; he called out to the cabman, "Stop!" Standing on the pavement, he took off his hat to me with a sweeping flourish, saying, with a laugh-- "The handkerchief itself--that priceless relic of my late lamented greatgrandmother!--I will call for at your office in Austin Friars." CHAPTER III. THE NAME ON THE SCRAP OF PAPER. I was quite conscious, as I drove home the rest of the way alone, that I had made of myself, doubly and trebly, a fool. But, if possible, still worse remained behind. How the African gentleman, of whom I read the other day, manages with 999 wives, I, for one, am at a loss to understand. When a man is on good terms with one wife--and I had rather be on good terms with one wife than on bad terms with 999--occasions do arise on which he experiences little difficulties. For instance, I had been in the habit of telling my wife everything--or, perhaps, it would be more correct to write, practically everything. It would have been well for me if there had been no reservations. As a matter of fact, I had said nothing about two or three little incidents of my pre-nuptial existence. Notably, I had said nothing about Ellen Howth--though that, perhaps, was rather more than an incident.