"Perhaps there are two distinct crowds after Sherman’s gold bonds, and Beaumanoir is in with the Ziegler lot, and Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is playing against them," the General mused as he turned his steps back to the house. "To think that the fellow holds the key of it all, and won’t speak, is what riles me." The immediate dilemma confronted him whether or no to impart to his nephew the cause for alarm that had arisen about Sybil. He had been surprised at first that a man of Alec Forsyth’s shrewdness had not seen for himself a danger threatening the girl he loved; but closer examination disclosed a reason. Forsyth was too modest, too little of a coxcomb, for it to occur to him that violence could result from a misplaced passion for himself. On the whole, the General decided that, as Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not due till the next day, he would say nothing to Alec at present. "If I can make Beaumanoir disgorge his secret, the trouble may not arise," he comforted himself. Though the veteran’s faith in himself was shaken, and he wished he had resisted the temptation to meddle with crime outside his old Eastern sphere, he was not the man to take his hand from the plough. He would devote all his diplomacy to penetrating the cause of the Duke’s obstinate silence. As he had anticipated, there was a lull that day in the activity of the enemy—at any rate of overt attempts. No communication reached him from Azimoolah, who would certainly have been heard from if suspicious characters had been on the move in the neighborhood of the mansion; for, though unseen, that tireless tracker might be trusted to be at his post, which was anywhere and everywhere within the radius of a mile. The denser thickets of the park possibly concealed him, or it might be that he hovered in the nearer precincts of the gardens, unseen but ready. His presence relieved the General from disturbing the routine of the household by special instructions to the servants, who were still fluttered by the lassooing of the lame gardener on the previous Sunday. So far, all the precaution that the General had delegated to others than himself and Forsyth was to give the bailiff a quiet hint, as a message from the Duke, not to admit the "artists" to the park, should they present themselves again. But up to the hour of luncheon the painters of "deer like unto swine" had not renewed their application or put in an appearance.