I hope I shall never live through a week like that again. Even now, as I look back, I cannot believe that it all happened in seven days. It still seems to have been something like seven months at the very least. We had one thing in our favour as we sat down to the table; we all had a common object in view. We were each of us determined to forget the green ray for a moment. Fortunately the old man took an immediate fancy to Dennis and that brightened me considerably. There are few things so pleasant as to see those whose opinion you value getting on with your friends. Only once, and that after Mary McNiven had come to take poor Myra away, did the subject of the green ray crop up. "Mr. Burnham knows about it all, I suppose?" the General asked. "I've told him everything, and Garnesk and I went over the whole thing with him before the train went." "Good!" said the old man emphatically. "Excellent fellow Garnesk--excellent; in fact, I don't know when I've met such a thundering good chap. No new developments, I suppose?" I hesitated. I could not have brought myself to lie to him, and in view of the startling complications with which we had so recently been confronted, I was at a loss for an answer. Dennis came to my rescue just in time. "I think Ron's difficulty is in defining the word 'developments,' General," said he. "If we said there were developments it would naturally convey the impression that we had something definite to report. I think perhaps the best way to put it would be that we believe we are getting on the right scent, by the simple process of putting two and two together and making them four. We hope to have something very decided to tell you in a day or two." "I shall be glad to hear something, I can assure you," said the old man, "but in the meantime we will try to forget about it. You have had a tiring journey, Mr. Burnham, followed by a strange initiation into what is probably a new sphere of life altogether--the sphere of mysteries and detectives, and so forth. No, Ronald, we'll give Mr. Burnham a rest for to-night." But just as I was congratulating myself that we had escaped from the painful necessity of putting him off with an evasive answer, if not a deliberate lie, the butler entered and announced that he had shown Mr. Hilderman into the library. "Well, as we are ready, we had better join him," said the old man, and we adjourned to the other room. Now if Hilderman should by any tactless remark betray our strange experience in the afternoon there would be the devil to pay. I followed the General into the library, beckoning to the American with a warning finger on my lip. He saw at once what I meant, fortunately, and held his tongue, and we all talked of general matters for some little time. Then Hilderman took the bull by the horns.