He was by the window when the heavy-carved door quickly opened, and a man stepped into the room. Lord Lyndwood stood where he was. "Good morning, Mr. Hilton," he said. The new-comer advanced. "I have kept you waiting, my lord," he said. "A domestic matter detained me." He looked at the Earl gravely, yet intently, and came nearer. He was a middle-aged man, heavy in build, with a commonplace countenance imparted by ambitions satisfied and a prosperity hardly attained and keenly relished. He was dressed in plum-coloured velvet. Across his waistcoat was a watch-chain set with rubies that he fingered with his coarse left hand, as if he could not forget it; he wore a large, old-fashioned peruke heavily powdered, that, flowing on to his shoulders, gave a touch of remote dignity to his person, belied by his shrewd, alert face. "Your lordship must excuse the disorder of my house," he said. "We are but newly arrived in London." "I observe no disorder," answered the Earl. His slow glance rested on the owner of the mansion. "It appears to me prodigious neat." Mr. Hilton bowed. "Will you be seated, my lord?" Rose Lyndwood moved to one of the stiff, awkward-looking sofas, and seated himself there, with his back to the light. "You received my letter?" he asked, placing his hat beside him. "I had that honour, my lord." Mr. Hilton placed himself in one of the covered chairs, sat erect in unconscious discomfort, and gazed at the Earl with narrowed eager eyes. "Then there is the less for me to say," answered Rose Lyndwood. He sat carelessly, and his voice was languid, as if it were no great matter that he discussed; but his face was pale above the black stock, and his lips had the look of disdain that came to them when against his will he forced himself to touch affairs he wished to spurn. "If your lordship's object in this visit is what I imagine it to be," said Mr. Hilton, "there is not much for us to discuss." Rose Lyndwood lifted his head; he did not look at the other man, but beyond him. "A year ago, or nearly a year ago, Mr. Hilton, you and I met on a matter of business." The disdainful smile was now unmistakable. "You, as one of the gentlemen connected with my banking house, knew, and know, something of my affairs." Mr. Hilton nodded, as if he heard what he had expected and was satisfied. The Earl began to pull off his gloves slowly, loosening each finger first. He turned his eyes on Mr. Hilton, and they looked as dark as the velvet bat at the corner of his beautiful mouth. "I was in difficulties then, you will remember, and you made a proposition to me that I rejected. How much of this need I recall to you?" "I recollect it," said Mr. Hilton, "perfectly." There was a hardly noticeable pause and a hardly noticeable effort on the part of the Earl before he spoke again. "I am now an utterly ruined man."