“We have some notes to take, both of us,” he said, in a steady voice which sounded quite unlike his own. “Here is a pencil for you, and here is mine. I’ll give you half this paper, and I’ll keep half. Lend me your penknife.” He was bending down over the paper, and holding out his hand, not looking at Jack. There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of the young man, and then he produced his penknife from his pocket. It was a neat little gold-cased affair, very flat, and with two blades. He opened one of these, and handed the knife to Sir Robert. The baronet took it from him, but instead of using it as a paper-knife, as he had appeared to wish to do, he turned his back to Jack, and taking something from his own pocket, looked down earnestly at what he held in his hands. Then he turned without a word or a cry, and held under Jack’s eyes the penknife, with the second blade opened. This second blade was broken, having lost about half an inch. In Sir Robert’s other hand was the missing piece of steel. Holding the penknife in one hand and the piece of broken blade in the other, the baronet looked up steadily into the eyes of the young man, and said: “I picked up this broken blade under the space in the wall where my Romney used to hang.” Jack started violently, in spite of all his caution. The baronet went on in an awful voice: “It was your penknife which cut the picture out of its frame. It was you who stole it. Deny it if you can.” For a moment Jack was too much overwhelmed to speak. Then, recovering himself, he stammered out: “I don’t understand. Some one must have stolen my penknife. I--I am sur--prised that you can accuse me of stealing your picture.” But he had scarcely got to the end of his stammering, halting speech when Sir Robert, with a vigour and muscular strength of which the younger man would never have dreamt him to be possessed, flung himself upon him, and dragging him across the floor, threw him violently upon the couch by the fireplace, and holding him down, in a grip that grew tighter every moment, stared into his face with eyes that blazed like those of an enraged lion. “The picture! The picture! What do I care for the picture? What would a thousand pictures matter? What I want to know, what I _will_ know is--what have you robbed me of besides? You are a thief, a pitiful thief, but I could forgive you that. But you didn’t do this thing alone: you had a companion, an accomplice. Who was it? Who was it? Tell me, tell me!” And as he spoke, with a terrible look, he clutched Jack Rotherfield by the throat and forced the guilty eyes to meet his own. CHAPTER XV. SELF-ACCUSATIONS Jack Rotherfield made no reply; indeed the hands of Sir Robert were pressing so tightly on his throat that he could scarcely have spoken if he had wished to do so.