"This," said Ziegler’s aide-de-camp, "is the packet which my chief wishes you to deliver to the Duke of Beaumanoir. You are alive to the importance of seeing that it reaches its destination without being lost or tampered with?" "My dear sir, I should not, I imagine, have been entrusted with this very uncongenial errand unless I had been thought capable of carrying it out," replied Forsyth, in a tone of annoyance. "Take it, then," Benzon proceeded. "And you are, please, to inform his Grace that Mr. Ziegler, though he would have preferred to see him in person, is satisfied with the discretion of his emissary." "Thanks, but I don’t think I need a testimonial from Mr. Ziegler to recommend me to the Duke," replied Forsyth, coolly, as he buttoned the letter into the breast-pocket of his frock coat and with a bow took his departure. Out in the corridor he breathed more freely. "I don’t think that I overdid my exhibition of temper," he told himself. "A little touchiness was to be expected under the circumstances." He had begun to descend the stairs into the entrance-hall, when he saw—with something of a shock—coming up, and therefore about to meet him, the lady whom he believed to be in the next suite to Ziegler’s, advising her partners through the communicating door. He had got it firmly into his head that during the twenty minutes he had been kept waiting that door had been opened, and the terms of the letter settled between the two principals; and here was Mrs. Talmage Eglinton not in her rooms at all, but apparently only just arrived. "Ah, Mr. Forsyth!" she cried, coquettishly. "You have been up to my suite to look for me, with a view to standing me a luncheon somewhere. Now don’t deny that you were disappointed when you found that I had not reached the hotel and that the suite was locked up." Could he have been mistaken? Forsyth asked himself. If so, the mistake was not really his, but General Sadgrove’s, and the entire bottom was knocked out of the veteran’s theory as to this woman’s complicity. "But I have not been up to your rooms," was all he could reply on the spur of the moment. "I had business with the gentleman who occupies the adjoining suite." If it was not genuine, the look of disappointment that stole into her face was a consummate piece of acting. "Oh, was that all," she said, with a queer little laugh. "Well, that doesn’t absolve you from asking me to lunch now that you have the chance." "I shall be delighted," was the only answer he could make without showing open hostility. "Wait in the hall, then," said Mrs. Talmage Eglinton. "I am only going up to see if some jewelry I left locked up when I went down to Prior’s Tarrant is safe."