"Rotten luck! Lionel is a fool!" he declared to himself viciously, as he approached the pigeon-hole to take his ticket. "But one can’t have all the good things of life. One must fail sometimes. And yet," he added, "I can’t think why I’ve failed. But so long as it isn’t a bad omen, I don’t care! Why should I?" And he took his ticket and descended the stairs to the train. On arrival at Sloane Square he walked along to Pont Street to a large, red-brick house, into which he admitted himself with the latchkey upon his chain, a key very similar to that of the locked room in Bridge Place. In the well-furnished hall he encountered a smart, good-looking French lady’s maid. "Ah! Good-evening, Annette. Is Madame at home?" he asked. "Oui, monsieur," the girl promptly replied. "Madame is upstairs in the boudoir." Boyne, who was evidently no stranger there, hung up his hat and passed upstairs to a room on the second floor, a cosy, tastefully-furnished apartment, where, at a table upon which stood a reading-lamp with a green silk shade, a handsome, dark-haired woman in a pearl-grey evening frock sat writing a letter. "Hallo, Lilla! I’m glad you haven’t gone to bed!" he exclaimed. "I want to have a chat with you. I met Annette downstairs. A pity that infernal girl hasn’t gone to her room. I don’t want her to overhear anything. Recollect Céline!" "I’ll send the girl to bed," said the woman, pressing an electric button. "Anything wrong?" "Nothing very seriously wrong," was his reply. And at his words the woman, who had betrayed alarm at sight of him, gave a sigh of relief. Bernard Boyne flung himself into a silk-covered easy-chair, and, clasping his hands behind his head, gazed around the luxurious little room. It was, indeed, very different to his own surroundings in drab, work-a-day Hammersmith. Here taste and luxury were displayed on every hand; a soft, old-rose carpet, with hangings and upholstery to match—a woman’s den which had been furnished regardless of expense by one of the best firms in the West End. Truth to tell, that elegant West End house was his own, and the handsome woman, Lilla, though she passed as Mrs. Braybourne, and was very popular in quite a good set, was his own wife. Husband and wife lived apart. They did so for a purpose. Bernard was a hard-working insurance agent, a strict Churchman, perfectly upright and honest, though he lived his struggling life in Hammersmith. Truly, the _ménage_ in Pont Street was both unusual and curious. Boyne, known to the servants as Mr. Braybourne, was very often away for weeks at a time. Then suddenly he would return and spend a week with his wife, being absent, however, all day. Neither dear old Mrs. Felmore nor all his wide circle of Hammersmith friends ever dreamed that he kept up another establishment in one of the best streets in London, a thoroughfare where a few doors away on either side were the legations of certain important European States.