“Permit me. What is more serious, your self-confidence has been gradually deserting you. At last, perceiving that some blundering person was bound soon to put his foot through the brittle shell of your ostentation and tread on nothing, and foreseeing for yourself an immediate future consisting chiefly of Holloway, you have by a supreme effort of your genius, borrowed £60,000 from a bank on C.M.I.C. scrip, for a week (eh?), and you have arranged, you and your wife, to--melt into thin air. You will affect to set out as usual for your country place in Hampshire, but it is Southampton that will see you to-night, and Havre will see you to-morrow. You may run over to Paris to change some notes, but by Monday you will be on your way to----frankly, I don’t know where; perhaps Monte Video. Of course you take the risk of extradition, but the risk is preferable to the certainty that awaits you in England. I think you will elude extradition. If I thought otherwise, I should not have had you here to-night, because, once extradited, you might begin to amuse yourself by talking about me.” “So it’s blackmail,” said Mr. Bowring, grim. The dark eyes opposite to him sparkled gaily. “It desolates me,” the youngish man observed, “to have to commit you to the deep with only ten thousand. But, really, not less than fifty thousand will requite me for the brain-tissue which I have expended in the study of your interesting situation.” Mr. Bowring consulted his watch. “Come, now,” he said, huskily; “I’ll give you ten thousand. I flatter myself I can look facts in the face, and so I’ll give you ten thousand.” “My friend,” answered the spider, “you are a judge of character. Do you honestly think I don’t mean precisely what I say--to sixpence? It is eight-thirty. You are, if I may be allowed the remark, running it rather fine.” “And suppose I refuse to part?” said Mr. Bowring, after reflection. “What then?” “I have confessed to you that I hate violence. You would therefore leave this room unmolested, but you wouldn’t step off the island.” Mr. Bowring scanned the agreeable features of the stranger. Then, while the lifts were ascending and descending, and the wine was sparkling, and the jewels flashing, and the gold chinking, and the pretty women being pretty, in all the four quarters of the Devonshire, Mr. Bruce Bowring in the silent parlour counted out fifty notes on to the table. After all, it was a fortune, that little pile of white on the crimson polished wood. “_Bon voyage!_” said the stranger. “Don’t imagine that I am not full of sympathy for you. I am. You have only been unfortunate. _Bon voyage!_” “No! By Heaven!” Mr. Bowring almost shouted, rushing back from the door, and drawing a revolver from his hip pocket. “It’s too much! I didn’t mean to--but confound it! what’s a revolver for?” The youngish man jumped up quickly and put his hands on the notes. “Violence is always foolish, Mr. Bowring,” he murmured. “Will you give them up, or won’t you?”