The Flemish tapestry looked dull, and the exquisite Eve was a less glaring white, and seemed to have lost expression in a newfound modesty, and the nymphs and satyr looked dull and tired. How different from the hours when the gas brought beautiful colors into the cut-glass pendants on the chandeliers, and everything seemed awake and alive where now they slept. The bartenders looked dull and uninterested, and a man who stood alone at the bar drank as if he had nothing else to do. He was a low, heavy-set man, dressed handsomely. He wore a black beard and mustache, and his small, black, bright eyes critically surveyed, across his high nose, the handsome and genial Richard. He set down an empty whiskey glass from which he had just been drinking, and, after taking a swallow of ice water, he remarked, in a voice perfectly void of emotion: “I beg your pardon, but do you know that you are being ‘shadowed’?” “I knew they were after me some days ago, but I thought they had given me up,” Dick said, laughingly. “What do you know about it?” “I saw a man dog after you to the office when you first went through, and when you returned he came after you and went on out the side door. He’ll be on the watch for you when you go out,” he continued, in that even, passionless voice. “You are very kind,” Dick said, gratefully, “to warn me of the fellow.” “The game was too easy, if you didn’t know,” he said, with a malicious grin. “I only wanted to give the fellow some work--make him earn his money. You can both work at the same game now.” “You are very kind,” Dick repeated, mechanically. He had a faint impression that the stranger had warned him of his followers more with malicious motives than with any feeling of good will, still the next moment he felt ashamed of harboring such a thought against the man. “If you care to know the fellow, I’ll walk out with you and point him out,” the man offered gruffly, still with a gleam in his eyes which showed that the expected discomfort of the two men afforded him if not exactly pleasure, at least, amusement. “Thank you. Won’t you join me first?” asked Dick. “What will you have? Whiskey”--to the bartender. “I am very much obliged for your kindness, and if I can ever be of any service to you, command me,” and the impulsive Dick took his card case from his pocket and handed one of the rectangular bits of pasteboard to the man just as they both lifted their glasses. The stranger glanced at the name and turned ghastly pale. His glass fell from his nerveless fingers to the floor with a crash, and he leaned heavily against the mahogany bar. CHAPTER X. TOLMAN BIKE. One evening Mr. Richard Treadwell found the following letter awaiting him when he went to his rooms to dress for dinner. “Washington, _June Third, 18--_. “Dear Dick: