"Pray say no more about it," he cried. He caught the outstretched hand in his and carried it to his lips. "I don't wish to hurry you; in fact, haste is dangerous. And there is ample time. Nor am I going to press you. Still, before long you may find some way to give me a clue without sacrificing a jot of your fine loyalty to--well, others. I would not distress you for the world, Miss Gates. Don't you think that this has been the most extraordinary interview?" The tears trembled like diamonds on the girl's long lashes and a smile flashed over her face. The sudden transformation was wonderfully fascinating. "What you might call an impossible interview," she laughed. "And all the more impossible because it was quite impossible that you could ever have been here before." "When I was in this room two nights ago," David protested, "I saw---" "Did you see me, for instance? If not, you couldn't have been here." A small, misshapen figure, with the face of a Byron--Apollo on the bust of a Satyr--came in from behind the folding doors at the back of the dining-room carrying some letters in his hand. The stranger's dark, piercing eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Steel. "Bell," the latter cried; "Hatherly Bell! you have been listening!" The little man with the godlike head admitted the fact, coolly. He had been writing letters in the back room and escape had been impossible for him. "Funny enough, I was going to look you up to-day," he said. "You did me a great service once, and I am longing to repay you. I came down here to give my friend Gates the benefit of my advice and assistance over a large philanthropic scheme he has just evolved. And, writing letters yonder on that subject, I heard your extraordinary conversation. Can I help you, Steel?" "My dear fellow," David cried, "if you offered me every intellect in Europe I should not choose one of them so gladly as yours." "Then let us shake hands on the bargain. And now I am going to stagger you; I heard you state positively that two nights ago you were in this very room." "I am prepared to testify the fact on oath anywhere, my dear Bell." "Very well; will you be good enough to state the hour?" "Certainly. I was here from one o'clock--say between one and two." "And I was here also. From eleven o'clock till two I was in this very room working out some calculations at this very table by the aid of my reading-lamp, no other light being in the room, or even in the house, as far as I know. It is one of my fads--as fools call them--to work in a large, dark room with one brilliant light only. Therefore you could not possibly have been in the house, to say nothing of this room, on the night in question." David nodded feebly. There was no combating Bell's statement. "I presume that this is No. 219?" he asked. "Certainly it is," Miss Gates replied. "We are all agreed about _that_."