“You’ve got me out of a scrape,” he said solemnly, and seated himself at her gesture. He had been up all night, he told her without invitation. He added that he had borrowed a sovereign from a famous detective whom, with unnecessary caution, he described as Signor T----. “Not that I’ve been to sleep,” he said. “I have been engaged with a Chink”--he saw she was puzzled--“a Chinaman,” he hastened to correct himself. “A very admirable man, who does things.” An ambiguous but characteristic description, she thought. He was ill at ease, and remarkably silent through the interview; spoke little, yet several times seemed to be on the point of speaking. “You seem to have something to confess,” she said at last in gentle raillery. She had to make conversation at an hour of the day when small talk was a most difficult exercise to assume, and was at her wits’ end for subjects. Three times he had started with an ominous “I feel that I ought to tell you”; and three times he had stopped and talked rapidly for a minute or two about some subject wholly irrelevant to the matter under discussion. “I have and I haven’t,” he said slowly. “That is to say, I had, and probably that from a strictly ethical standpoint still have. It is a nice question.” He rose to go with startling abruptness. “There is something troubling you, my man,” thought she in an amused way. “Miss Yale,” he said solemnly. “In war all expedients are justified.” “I agree,” she smiled. “But exactly what are you thinking about?” It may be that Captain Talham had no intention of telling her at that precise moment. What is certain, however, is that in his agitation he pulled his handkerchief from an inside pocket and with it something which fell upon the floor. The girl looked at it in wonder; and well she might, for there was an absolute replica of the ornament she had returned to young De Costa a few moments before. CHAPTER V. MR. SOO MAKES A DISCOVERY. Mr. de Costa, senior, sat in his study until late that night. His son had gone to a musical comedy to the relief of his mind and the repair of a crushed spirit, and Mr. de Costa was alone in the house save one man-servant--a half-caste factotum, who was neither butler nor errand-boy nor valet, and yet performed the functions of each. At nine o’clock a man came to the house and was admitted through the servants’ entrance. He was shown at once to the study. De Costa looked over his glasses at the visitor and pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Soo,” he said, and the Chinaman, with a jerk and wriggle intended to display his respect for superiority, and his reluctance to seat himself in the presence of greatness, obeyed.