"I'm going to bed and I should like you particularly to conform to what I said to you a short time ago. Smoke a single cigarette with your friend here and then go to your room. You'll have me down on you if I hear of your having, during the night, tried any preposterous games." Young Lechmere, looking down with his hands in his pockets, said nothing--he only poked at the corner of a rug with his toe; so that Spencer Coyle, dissatisfied with so tacit a pledge, presently went on, to Owen: "I must request you, Wingrave, not to keep this sensitive subject sitting up--and indeed to put him to bed and turn his key in the door." As Owen stared an instant, apparently not understanding the motive of so much solicitude, he added: "Lechmere has a morbid curiosity about one of your legends--of your historic rooms. Nip it in the bud." "Oh, the legend's rather good, but I'm afraid the room's an awful sell!" Owen laughed. "You know you don't _believe_ that, my boy!" young Lechmere exclaimed. "I don't think he does," said Mr. Coyle, noticing Owen's mottled flush. "He wouldn't try a night there himself!" young Lechmere pursued. "I know who told you that," rejoined Owen, lighting a cigarette in an embarrassed way at the candle, without offering one to either of his companions. "Well, what if she did?" asked the younger of these gentleman, rather red. "Do you want them _all_ yourself?" he continued facetiously, fumbling in the cigarette-box. Owen Wingrave only smoked quietly; then he exclaimed: "Yes--what if she did? But she doesn't know," he added. "She doesn't know what?" "She doesn't know anything!--I'll tuck him in!" Owen went on gaily to Mr. Coyle, who saw that his presence, now that a certain note had been struck, made the young men uncomfortable. He was curious, but there was a kind of discretion, with his pupils, that he had always pretended to practise; a discretion that however didn't prevent him as he took his way upstairs from recommending them not to be donkeys. At the top of the staircase, to his surprise, he met Miss Julian, who was apparently going down again. She had not begun to undress, nor was she perceptibly disconcerted at seeing him. She nevertheless, in a manner slightly at variance with the rigour with which she had overlooked him ten minutes before, dropped the words: "I'm going down to look for something. I've lost a jewel." "A jewel?" "A rather good turquoise, out of my locket. As it's the only ornament I have the honour to possess----!" And she passed down. "Shall I go with you and help you?" asked Spencer Coyle. The girl paused a few steps below him, looking back with her Oriental eyes. "Don't I hear voices in the hall?" "Those remarkable young men are there." "_They'll_ help me." And Kate Julian descended.