I am bound to admit that until he put this problem to me it had not occurred to me to look at the matter in that light, and now I felt much as Preston declared he would feel if he were in my place. Dulcie might not mind my having discovered that she had picked up the guns as a bargain—indeed, why should she? But when it came to hinting—as I should have to do if I broached the matter at all—that I believed that her great friend Connie Stapleton knew, when she sold the guns to her, that they had been stolen—Connie Stapleton, who was about to become her stepmother— No, I shouldn't have the pluck to do it. I shouldn't have the pluck to face the storm of indignation that I knew my words would stir up in her—women are logical enough, in spite of all that the ignorant and unthinking urge to the contrary, but in this particular case Dulcie would, I felt perfectly certain, "round" upon me, and, in the face of evidence, no matter how damning, declare that I was, to say the least, mistaken. She would go at once to Connie Stapleton and tell her everything, and immediately Connie Stapleton would invent some plausible story which would entirely clear her of all responsibility, and from that moment onward I should probably be her bitterest enemy. No, I thought; better, far better, say nothing—perhaps some day circumstances might arise which would of themselves lead to Mrs. Stapleton's, so to speak, "giving herself away." Indeed, in face of the discovery, I now decided not to make certain statements to Sir Roland that I had fully intended to make. After all, he was old enough to be my father, and if a man old enough to be my father could be so foolish as to fall in love with an adventuress, let him take the consequences. I should not so much have minded incurring Sir Roland's wrath, but, knowing him as well as I did, I felt positive that anything I might say would only strengthen his trust in and attachment to this woman he had decided to wed. He might even turn upon me and tell me to my face that I was striving to oppose his marriage because his marrying must, of course, affect my pecuniary position—an old man who falls in love becomes for the time, I have always maintained, mentally deranged. Preston conversed at considerable length with Dick Challoner, and, by the time I rose to leave—for I had to call at Willow Street for Dulcie at noon—the two appeared to have become great friends. "I shall take you with me to call for Dulcie," I said to Dick as we went out. "Then we shall drive you to Paddington, put you in the train for Windsor, and leave you to your own devices." "I wish I hadn't lost my suit-case," Dick observed ruefully. "I bet anything it's in that house in Cumberland Place where the taxi stopped—unless the woman who met me at Paddington intentionally left it in the taxi when she found I had jumped out and run away. We ought to inquire at Scotland Yard, oughtn't we?"