"I will," said Mr. Basingstoke. "Madam, I have to ask your pardon for an unpardonable liberty. I have deceived you. I am not what you think. I am not a piano-tuner, but an engineer." "But you said you were. . . ." "Pardon me. I said there were chords in the breasts of piano-tuners." "But if you aren't, how did you know there was one?" This _riposte_ he had not anticipated. Frankness had its drawbacks--so small a measure of it as he had allowed himself. He leaped headlong into diplomacy again. "Look back on what you have said, not only to me, but to others," he said, solemnly, and saw that the chance shot had gone home. "Now," he said, "don't let us prolong an interview which cannot but be painful to us both. I am not the piano-tuner for whom you take me. You are a complete stranger to me. The only link that binds us is the fact that your horse ran over my dog and that you bore the apparently lifeless body home for me. Yet if you wish me to leave the neighborhood, I will leave it. In fact, I was going in any case," he added, struggling against diplomacy. Miss Davenant looked at him. "You're speaking the truth," she said; "you're not the piano-tuner. But you got as red as fire yesterday. So did my niece. What was that for?" "I cannot explain my complicated color-scheme," said Edward, "without diagrams and a magic-lantern. And as for your niece, I can lay my hand on my heart and say that the light of declining day never illumined that face for me till the moment when it also illumined yours." "Are you deceiving me?" Miss Davenant asked, weakly, and Edward answered: "Yes, I am; but not in the way you think. We all have our secrets, but mine are not the secrets of the piano-tuner." Some one sneezed in the passage outside. "Our host has been eavesdropping," said Edward, softly. "Well, if he doesn't make more of this conversation than I do, he won't make much," said Miss Davenant. "I don't trust you." "That would make it all the easier for me to deceive you," said Edward, "if I sought to deceive." "You've got too much language for me," said Miss Davenant. "If you're not the man, I apologize." "Don't mention it," said Edward. "If you are, I don't wonder so much at what happened in London. Good night. Sorry to have disturbed you." "Don't you think," said Edward, "that you might as well tell me why you _did_ disturb me?" "I thought you were the piano-tuner," she said; "you knew that perfectly well. And I don't want piano-tuners hanging round Jevington. I'm sorry I offered the money. I ought to have seen." "Not at all," said Mr. Basingstoke, "and, since my presence here annoys you, know that by this time to-morrow I shall be far away." "There's one thing more," said Miss Davenant. But Mr. Basingstoke was never to know what that one thing was, for at the instant a wild shriek rang through the quiet night, there was a scuffle outside, hoarse voices in anger and pain, the door burst open, and Miss Davenant's groom staggered in.