"Oh, yes," the stranger said, "I know exactly what you mean. You probably heard it next door when you were listening so intently to the conversation between my friend Charles Le Fenu, the cripple, and that scoundrel who calls himself Fenwick. He is exceedingly anxious to know where I am, though without the smallest intention of benefitting me. Before long, his curiosity will be gratified; but not in the way he thinks." The latter words came from the speaker's lips with a spitting hiss, such as a cat emits in the presence of a dog. The great round black eyes added intensity to the threat, and rendered the feline simile complete. The prophecy boded ill for Fenwick when at length he and Felix Zary came face to face. "I see my conjecture is quite right," the stranger went on. "And as to you gentlemen, I have asked your names merely as a matter of courtesy. As a matter of fact I know perfectly well who you are--you are Mr. Gerald Venner and Mr. James Gurdon. But there is one thing I don't know, and that is why you have thrust yourself into this diabolical business. You must be brave men, or absolutely unconscious of the terrible danger you are running. If either of you are friends of Fenwick's--" "Not for a moment," Venner cried. "You pay us a poor compliment indeed if you take us to be in any way friendly with that scoundrel." "And yet you are here," Zary went on. "You are spying on the movements of my friend, Le Fenu. You have contrived to obtain possession of the keys of his house for no other purpose. Why?" Venner paused before he answered the question. He did not recognise the right of this man to put him through a cross-examination. Indeed, it seemed to him, the less he said the better. Perhaps Zary saw something of what was going on in his mind, for his big black eyes smiled, though the dejected visage remained the same. "I see, you do not trust me," he said. "Perhaps you are right to be cautious. Let me ask you another question, assuring you at the same time that I am the friend of Charles Le Fenu and his sisters, and that if necessary I will lay down my life to save them from trouble. Tell me, Mr. Venner, why are you so interested in saving the girl who passes for Fenwick's daughter from her miserable position? Tell me." Zary came a step or two closer to Venner and looked down into his face with a searching yearning expression in those magnetic black eyes. The appeal to Venner was irresistible. The truth rose to his lips; it refused to be kept back. "Because," he said slowly, "because she is my wife." A great sigh of relief came from Zary.