But Beaumanoir was in no mood to perceive the humor of the situation. He was clearly fidgeting to be gone, and Sybil could only conclude that he wanted to be gone before Alec arrived. With a girl’s faith in her lover’s power to surmount most difficulties, she decided to try and detain her cousin as long as possible; but her diplomacy was not called into play. Prince, now wearing an air of mild protest at all these excursions and alarums, appeared in the doorway to announce: "Mr. Forsyth." Beaumanoir was evidently disconcerted at not having made his exit in time; and Sybil, recognizing that there was something between the two men not for her ears, tactfully withdrew to the other end of the room, after smiling a greeting to her lover. She thought none the worse of him because he was too preoccupied to return it. She was beginning to discern an undercurrent of serious import beneath the happenings of the past half-hour. "What made you break cover, old chap? You’ve given me a pretty scare," said Forsyth to the Duke. "When I found you’d gone, I came on here on the off-chance." "I didn’t think it fair to subject you to the sort of night you might have had with me as an inmate, so I cleared out," Beaumanoir replied, wearily. "I guessed you’d inquire here, so I called in to leave word that I was all right—up to date." "You were not molested before quitting my chambers?" "No. Why do you ask?" "Because the place has been visited; it must have been after you left," said Forsyth, gravely. And he went on to relate how he had found the door broken open, and how he had met two suspicious-looking men on the stairs, one dressed as a clergyman and the other in shabby tweeds. "Dressed as a clergyman?" cried Beaumanoir, startled into forgetfulness of Sybil’s presence in the room. "Then, Alec, I have stood face to face with death in this house not ten minutes ago. I found your sham parson here, professing to be an official detective; but I doubted him from the first." His raised tones reached Sybil, who realized that the house of Beaumanoir was confronted by no ordinary emergency. What the peril could be that threatened her noble relative she had no means of knowing, or any wish to know; but the Duke’s description of himself as standing "face to face with death" amid the seeming security of his own white drawing-room touched her with the icy hand of unknown dread, and, moreever, filled her with a sense of responsibility. The man who was not safe under the dazzling lights of that splendid apartment, with a host of servants within call, was going forth into all the insecurity of the London streets at midnight because, her instinct told her, he would not expose her to the same danger. Her cousin’s chivalry appealed not only to her loyalty to the house, but to that protective impulse which springs readily in every woman’s heart.