Suddenly he heard his name spoken inquiringly at his elbow, and wheeling smartly round he found himself looking into the harassed eyes of a well-dressed man whom he had seen, a few minutes before, pass on board from the landing-stage. He had specially noticed him from a limp which impeded his progress across the crowded gangway. "Yes, my name is Sherman, but I haven’t the pleasure of knowing yours," said the Senator shortly. There was a diffident air about this tired-looking individual—a something that might be shyness or might be guile—that put him on his guard. Could it be that one of the "confidence-men," about whom he had just spoken so lightly, was going to practise on him ere even the securities were out of the purser’s custody? He wondered what tale would be unfolded for his entrapment. "I am the Duke of Beaumanoir," the stranger replied, after a nervous glance round. "I don’t suppose you ever heard of me. There wouldn’t have been time for a letter from your people to reach you from this side before you sailed." "You know my wife and daughter?" the Senator asked, sharply. The "tale" was developing on the grand scale, he told himself. "I have the privilege of knowing Mrs. and Miss Sherman," replied the Duke, flushing under the keen scrutiny to which he was being subjected. "I have also the honor of being their host. They are staying, together with their friends the Sadgroves, at my place in Hertfordshire. I—I came down to meet you in the hope of inducing you to join them there." "Very good of you. May I ask how you came to make their acquaintance?" asked the Senator, in an arid tone. "I traveled in the same ship with them from New York, and General Sadgrove, with whom they stayed on arrival, happened to be the uncle of my friend and secretary, Alec Forsyth," Beaumanoir made answer. An amused twinkle flashed into the Senator’s clear eyes. He was quite certain now that the man was an impostor with designs on the three millions. The only spice of truth in the fellow’s story, he told himself, probably was that he had sailed in the _St. Paul_, which would have given him the opportunity of gathering from his wife or Leonie the particulars he was now working on. The Senator had no doubt that if he accompanied this rather poor specimen of a criminal decoy an attempt would be made to relieve him of the bonds—possibly to murder him. It was all a little too thin—especially the dangling of an exalted title as a bait to catch an American. This part of the scheme really annoyed him, as casting on a foible of his fellow-countrymen a reflection which he felt to be not wholly undeserved. The Senator became dangerous. "Very well, your Grace; if my family is under your roof, it is the right place for me," he said more affably. "I accept your invitation in the spirit in which it is given. I have a matter of three million sterling in securities to get from the bullion-room, and then I’m your man. Kindly wait here."