"The trifling planet Earth is yours—if you know how to use it." With a muffled tread I paced the room agitatedly. This affair between Alicia and Randolph was absurd. Randolph was unfit for the very thought of marriage. A wise parent would know how to deal with the situation. But, alas! I was neither wise nor a parent. Nevertheless I must find a way of liquidating this business not later than to-morrow. It could not go on. The lamplight showed me in my dull perplexity and I turned it off angrily and again threw myself on the bed to think in Egyptian darkness. On a sudden I heard a low murmur of voices without. It is seldom that voices are heard late at night in our secluded situation. Possibly the policeman exchanging comments on the night with some solitary passer-by. A moment later, however, I heard a key inserted in a lock and a door open. My nephew Randolph returning home at last! Then to-morrow would be the same? I asked myself. Alicia would turn over the cheque to him and all would go on as before? No, no, that could not be. Yet what could I do? Turn the boy adrift, Laura’s boy, and revolt Alicia’s spirit—make her hate me? What a horrible impasse! I listened for Randolph’s footsteps on the stairs, but there was no sound. Suppose I were to call him into my room and tell him that I knew all—appeal to his better nature. Was not that what parents were obliged to do the world over? I should talk tenderly to the boy—but in my heart I own I did not feel tenderly toward him. Still there was no sound of steps on the stairs. The black darkness made the tension of waiting intolerable. I switched on the light and automatically made toward the door. Then all at once the low hum of voices overtook me. Had Alicia descended to meet him? No—I had not heard her door. Surely Randolph in his sober senses would not bring friends of his to the house at this hour! I looked at my watch; it was twenty minutes past two! Noiselessly I opened my door and in the soft moccasin slippers I was wearing tiptoed down the hall. At the top of the stairs I paused to listen. Primeval instincts of alertness stirred within me. My heart was throbbing against my throat and I literally felt my eyes dilating in the darkness. I found myself smiling at the primitive machinery that is set in motion within us, slumber though it might, at the slightest provocation. Still treading softly I descended the stairs. No light was showing anywhere. The darkness was absolute. What under heaven could be the meaning of that? The primitive instinct of the stalker was again to the fore. At the foot of the stairs I paused. Sounds were audible. They came from my study!