"And," proceeded Forsyth, pursuing his slight advantage, "you would never have got Beaumanoir to assent to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton being asked here if he had known her to be a professional criminal. The ’honor of the house,’ as he calls it, is undoubtedly the motive of his inexplicable silence. He would hardly compromise that august sentiment, for which he is apparently willing to die, by desecrating Prior’s Tarrant with the presence of a woman likely to figure in the police-courts—a woman, too, who, if your theory is correct, has designs against the father of the girl for whom I veritably believe he has more than a passing regard." The General, secretly in danger of losing his temper—a thing he never really did—concealed his emotion by affecting to ruminate. The thought of his invitation to the dashing American, afterwards carelessly endorsed by the Duke, restored his equanimity. "That was a neat touch," he remarked meditatively as he selected a cigar from his case. "If his Grace is not cold meat, I’d give a good deal to be living under the same roof with him and Mrs. Talmage Eglinton for a few days, with the prospect of Senator Sherman’s arrival at the end of them." He held the cigar he had chosen poised between finger and thumb, and suddenly gazed round with a comical expression at the rich appurtenances of the majestic dining-room. The maze of this latter-day pursuit had led him into unfamiliar paths. His ancient triumphs had been won under the free sky, where he could unravel a knotty point with the aid of tobacco at will; but now he wanted to smoke, and was confronted by sternly repressive ducal splendor. "Mustn’t light up here, I suppose," he grunted. "Let’s get into the open and have a whiff. Yes, I know it’s two o’clock, but we can’t go to bed." He moved to one of the French windows, and, parting the heavy curtains, unfastened the bolts and stepped out on to the terrace where he had spent the earlier hours of the evening. Instantly both he and Forsyth, who followed close behind, became conscious of the sound of heavy breathing. As the shaft of light shot from the opened window they saw that at the apex of the shaft, half way to the balustrade of the terrace, two men were locked together on the ground in a ferocious struggle, while twenty paces off, in the shadow of the gray pile, the dim shapes of two other men paused irresolute, as if their advance had been checked by the sudden opening of the window. For two seconds General Sadgrove’s eyes blazed along the line of light; then with a spring that would have done credit to one of half his age, he hurled himself upon the combatants, and selecting the topmost for his onslaught, dragged him from the prone figure below.