_Dacre Wynne!_ And here! Impossible, and yet the name was too uncommon for it to be a different person from the man who always seemed somehow to turn up wherever he, Merriton, might chance to be. Sort of a fateful affinity. Good friends and all that, but somehow the things he always wanted, Dacre Wynne had invariably come by just beforehand. There was much more than friendly rivalry in their acquaintanceship. And once, as mere youngsters of seventeen and eighteen, there had been a girl, _his_ girl, until Dacre came and took her with that masterful way of his. There was something brutally over-powering about Dacre, hard as granite, forceful, magnetic. To Nigel's young, clean, wholesome mind, little given to morbid imaginings as it was, it had almost seemed as if their two spirits were in some stifling stranglehold together, wrapt about and intertwined by a hand operating by means of some unknown medium. And now to find him here in his hour of happiness. Was this close, uncomfortable companionship of the spirit to be forced on him again? If Wynne were present he felt he would be powerless to avoid it. "Do you know Dacre Wynne?" he asked, his voice betraying an emotion that was almost fear. 'Toinette Brellier glanced at her uncle, hesitated, and then murmured: "Yes--I--do. I didn't know you did, Nigel. He never spoke of you. I--he--you see he wants me, too, Nigel, and I am almost afraid to tell him--about us. But I--I have to see him. Shall I tell him?" "Of course. Poor chap, I am sorry for him. Yes, I know him, 'Toinette. But I cannot say we are friends. You see, I--Oh, well, it doesn't matter." But how much Dacre Wynne was to matter to him, and to 'Toinette, and to the public, and to far away Scotland Yard, and to the man of mystery, Hamilton Cleek, not they--nor any one else--could possibly tell. They went into the long, cool drawing room together, and came upon Dacre Wynne, clad in riding things, and looking, just as Nigel remembered he always looked, very bronzed and big and handsome in a heavy way. His back was toward them and his eyes were upon a photo of 'Toinette that stood on a carved secretaire. He wheeled at the sound of their footsteps and came forward, his face lighting with pleasure, his hand outstretched. Then he saw Merriton behind 'Toinette's tiny figure, and for a moment some of the pleasure went out of his eyes. "Hello," he said. "However did you get to this part of the world? You always turn up like a bad penny.... What a time you've been 'Toinette!" Merriton greeted him pleasantly, and 'Toinette's radiant eyes smiled up into his bronzed face. "Have I?" she said, with a little embarrassed laugh. "Well, I have been out riding--with Nigel." "Oh, Nigel lives round here, does he?" said Wynne, with a sarcastic laugh. "Like it, old man?" "Oh, I like it well enough," retorted Merriton. "At any rate I'll be obliged to get used to it. I've said good-bye to India for keeps, Wynne. I'm settled here for good."