"Ah!" The youngster’s breath came a little faster, as he stared at the older man. "You’ve come back unexpectedly, have you? It’s the sort of damned dirty trick you would play." I smiled involuntarily: this was carrying the war into the enemy’s camp with a vengeance. "What are you doing in this house alone with my wife, John Trelawnay?" Into the quiet voice had crept a note of menace, and, as I glanced at the speaker and noticed the close clenching and unclenching of his powerful hands. I realized that there was going to be trouble. The old, old story again, but, rightly or wrongly, with every sympathy of mine on the side of the sinners. "Your wife by a trick only, Rupert Carlingham," returned the other hotly. "You know she’s never loved you; you know she has always loved me." "Nevertheless—my wife. But I ask you again, what are you doing in this house while I am away?" "Did you expect us to stand outside in the storm?" muttered the other. For a moment the elder man’s eyes blazed, and I thought he was going to strike the youngster. Then, with an effort, he controlled himself, and his voice was ominously quiet as he spoke again. "You lie, John Trelawnay." His brooding eyes never left the other’s face. "It was no storm that drove you here to-day; no thunder that made you call my wife your darling. You came because you knew I was away; because you thought—you and your mistress—that I should not return till to-morrow." For a while he was silent, while the girl still crouched against the wall staring at him fearfully, and the youngster, realizing the hopelessness of further denial, faced him with folded arms. In silence I watched them from the shadow beyond the fireplace, wondering what I ought to do. There is no place for any outsider in such a situation, much less a complete stranger; and had I consulted my own inclinations I would have left the house there and then and chanced the storm still raging outside. I got as far as putting on my coat again, and making a movement towards the door, when the girl looked at me with such an agony of entreaty in her eyes that I paused. Perhaps it was better that I should stop; perhaps if things got to a head, and the men started fighting, I might be of some use. And at that moment Rupert Carlingham threw back his head and laughed. It echoed and re-echoed through the room, peal after peal of maniacal laughter, while the girl covered her face with her hands and shrank away, and the youngster, for all his pluck, retreated a few steps. The man was mad, there was no doubt about it: and the laughter of a madman is perhaps the most awful thing a human being may hear. Quickly I stepped forward; it seemed to me that if I was to do anything at all the time had now come. "I think, Mr. Carlingham," I said, firmly, "that a little quiet discussion would be of advantage to everyone."