I told him quite openly of my position, and that I lived in Rivermead Mansions with my friend Hambledon; and I also mentioned again the financial blow I had just received. "Well," he said lazily, "I'm greatly indebted to you, Mr. Garfield, for deigning to come in and see a much-worried man. Ah! you do not know how I suffer from my wife's hatred of me. My poor little Oswald. Fancy abandoning him in order that the police might find him. But happily he is back. Think of the publicity--for the papers would have been full of my son being lost." Then, after a pause, he added: "I hope we shall see each other again before I go back to Italy." At that moment, the butler, Horton, entered with a card upon a silver salver, whereupon I rose to leave. "Oh! don't go yet!" my host urged quickly, as he glanced at the card. "Is he waiting?" asked Mr. De Gex, turning to his servant. "Yes, sir." "Oh, well. Yes, I'll see him," he said. And then, excusing himself, he rose and left, followed by the man. Why, I wondered, had I been invited there? It seemed curious that this exceedingly rich man was bursting to confide his domestic troubles to a perfect stranger. I glanced around the handsome, well-furnished room. Upon the writing-table lay a number of letters, and upon the red blotting-pad was a big wad of Treasury notes, under an elastic band, cast aside heedlessly, as rich men often do. As I sat there awaiting my host's return, I recollected how, in the previous year, I had seen in the pictorial press photographs of the handsome Mrs. De Gex attired in jersey and breeches, with knitted cap and big woollen scarf, lying upon her stomach on a sleigh on the Cresta run. In another photograph which I recollected she was watching some ski-ing, and still another, when she was walking in the park with a well-known Cabinet Minister and his wife. But her husband never appeared in print. One of his well-known idiosyncrasies was that he would never allow himself to be photographed. At the end of the room I noticed, for the first time, a pair of heavy oaken folding-doors communicating with the adjoining apartment, and as I sat there I fancied I heard a woman's shrill but refined voice--the voice of a well-bred young woman, followed by a peal of light, almost hysterical, laughter, in which a man joined. My adventure was certainly a strange one. I had started out to visit my prosaic old uncle--as I so often did--and I had anticipated a very boring time. But here I was, by a most curious circumstance, upon friendly terms with one of the richest men in England. Further, he seemed to have taken an unusual fancy to me. Probably because I had been sympathetic regarding the rescue of little Oswald De Gex. But why he should have confided all this to me I failed to realize. As I sat there by the cheerful fire I heard the voices again raised in the adjoining room--the voices of a man and a woman.