"And, failing all else, I will go down to the House of Commons this very afternoon and make a personal appeal for you to both Cuthbertson and the Home Secretary," cried the Member of Parliament vigorously, for now he too seemed to be quite upset at the line things were taking. "All right," I said bravely. "I won't thank you. We are all now too good friends, and too closely allied, to make use of conventional expressions of gratitude. I trust you--that's sufficient--and I'll step out and meet this turn of affairs with all the courage I can muster." With a curt nod I turned and left them and made my way down the staircase to the hall, and thence I passed rapidly to the door that shut off the monastery grounds from the public thoroughfare. This last was thrown open at my approach, and I proceeded to the roadway, which for a moment after I entered it looked quite deserted. Determined to carry the interview through with a high hand, however, I stepped out promptly, as though Whitehall at least was my destination, and then it was that Naylor, as I expected, found himself compelled to step from behind a tree and to show himself, which he did with an ugly twinkle of triumph in his small beady black eyes. "Ah, you've come, then?" he said with a grunt, disdaining all conventional expressions of greeting. "Yes; I've come," I answered with equal discourtesy. "What do you want, eh?" And I stepped quite close to him and faced him. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. HELD IN BONDAGE. Long afterwards, when the bitterness of that moment had ceased to rankle in my heart, the Prior and Casteno related how eagerly they had watched me from that long lancet-shaped window while I boldly advanced to the detective. For their own part, they were sure Naylor meant mischief to me, but as to the means he would employ they were all at sea, and so they were for the time all strain and attention. Luckily, I, too, was well on my guard, and so I did not show any undignified haste in the negotiations. Indeed, I purposely asked the inspector to explain why he had sent so earnest a message to me, and, finally cornered, he began the serious part of the conversation. "I suppose you guess," he said, looking aimlessly first to one side of him and then to the other, "why I've brought a posse of men with me and surrounded that queer place I found you in?" And with a wave of the hand he indicated the monastery. "In truth, I don't," I answered promptly, "unless," and here I paused rather effectively, "unless, Naylor, you have taken leave of your senses." The man tried to smile, but it was a sickly effort, foredoomed to failure. "Ah," he observed, "you always were a hot 'un, Mr Glynn, in any game of `bluff' but it won't do this time--you've gone a bit too far for your own comfort--and we're going to see you worsted."