"But I don't," I retorted, setting my chin firmly and clenching my fists. "I am tired of being treated as a little less than your friend, dear heart, and a little more than an acquaintance. I want you--your father--ay, all the world," I went on wildly, "to recognise me as your accepted lover. And inasmuch as Jose Casteno assists me to that end, I say now, once and for all, that I will not give him up for your father or anybody else. Besides, aren't we told there's a tide in the affairs of men? Well, I now put my intuition boldly against yours--against Colonel Napier's--even against the vamped-up stories of the ugly old Hunchback of Westminster--and I say that this tide of fortune has at last come to me, and that I will take it at the full flood no matter who may raise their hand in protest." "You are quite determined?" gasped poor Doris, with a little shiver. "Quite," I answered, and my teeth again closed with a snap. "Then," said she, with a little gulp of terror, turning towards the door, "I--I must hurry back. I promised father that I would leave you at once if you refused, and I too must keep my word. Let me, however, whisper one word to you." And still burning with self-righteousness I bent down. "Mizpah," said she in a low voice, almost like a prayer: "The Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other. Only He can protect us both. Please heaven He will." And kissing me hurriedly on the cheek she darted away. Next instant she had sprung into a passing hansom and had vanished from my sight, leaving me for a second quite dumbfounded. CHAPTER FOUR. THE HOUSE AT HAMPSTEAD. Thus began my powerful fight for Don Jose Casteno's rights! Looking back to-day I, of course, can see quite clearly how very foolish and headstrong I then was, how I refused to be warned, even by the best friend man ever has--the woman who loves him. But there! we can all be wise after the event, can't we? Oddly enough though, I did not meet Casteno in my offices that day at midnight as we had both so carefully arranged. True, I immediately made my way to Stanton Street, and by then eight o'clock had actually boomed forth from Big Ben, but no sooner did I reach my desk than I found thereon a telegram which had been despatched at 4:30 PM from the Charing Cross Telegraph Office by the mysterious Spaniard, cancelling the appointment, and calling upon me to: "Come immediately to St Bruno's, Chantry Road, Hampstead. I know all.--Casteno." As a consequence of this I was soon speeding half across London in that swift ten-horse Panhard of mine, which had been given to me a month previously in a burst of generosity by a foolish client, an old man, whom I had succeeded in delivering from a gang of needy blackmailers without scandal. Indeed, in less than an hour from receipt of his message, I had reached the long, winding, and secluded thoroughfare which he had specified.