"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened. Perhaps there _has_ been a thief----" "No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man assured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"--and he laughed a frank-sounding laugh--"I'm quite willing to be searched before I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any booty." "Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation," protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage--I have brought none with me. It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on your engagement." As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of fading brown. It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred hobble for a waddling run. Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling feet in woollen slippers. "What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?" "A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, prickling with suspicion again. "Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiance?" "Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she _struck_ me--beat my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is the way she repays me--with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!"