'We certainly did not. Helene is a twin sister of the Princess. The resemblance is exact enough, though, I'll admit.' This might have been true or not, but it was certainly new to me. 'Why didn't you tell me before?' I said. 'You hardly gave me a chance,' replied Poyning coldly. 'You seemed so ready to believe me a cad.' 'I'm sorry for that,' I said. 'But you know what that woman is. Have you considered what's likely to happen to both of us--and perhaps Philipson too--if you're caught in a business like to-night's?' 'I know a good deal more of her than you do, Mirlees,' he said quietly. 'I know that I love her more than my own body and soul, and that if loving her means death to me I shall meet it--with open arms.' I was silent for some moments. There was a ring in Poyning's words that I knew, that told me beyond any shade of doubt that he was fallen into the state which knows no prudence nor does it listen to logic. 'But remember,' he continued, 'it's my risk, not yours. If I come to grief over this, I fail to see why you should be any the worse off unless you're caught in it with me. Now let me go. I'm going to run into fresh danger.' 'Where are you going?' 'Listen, Mirlees. We all three had an object when we came on this adventure. Philipson's was a lost kingdom, yours a great discovery, mine--my own quest. I'm going on it to-night.' 'What is it?' 'I'm going to the tomb on the southern foothills. Don't ask me why, for I can't tell you, and don't try to come with me. If there's danger attaching to it, I'll face it alone.' I stood still, considering the position. Stephen Poyning, aged about twenty-one, well favoured in mind and body and with all the world before him, was saying yes to a perilous adventure. Myself, thirty-six, a widower, with something at least of my life-work behind me and no very great prospects of happiness in front, was declining the gambit. Had it been daylight I've no doubt he would have seen me redden a little. 'I don't know that it's altogether outside the scope of _my_ quest,' I said. He paused, undecided. 'What do you mean?' he queried. 'This. I don't attach as much importance to that grave as you seem to, Poyning, but the identity of the stranger who lies in it is still a riddle I'd be sorry to leave the valley without solving. I therefore suggest that if anybody's to go to the tomb at all, we might as well both go.' For all his valiant flourishes I caught a note of relief in Poyning's answer. 'You're a good fellow, Mirlees,' he said, 'and I've talked like a yahoo to-night. But why should you risk your life too--for I'm convinced it may easily amount to that?' I picked up the lanthorn--it was a lanthorn--that he had dropped. 'Let's get away,' I said, 'or it will be daylight before we're out of the city.' 'Very well,' he assented, 'though frankly I'd rather you didn't.' He was groping on the pavement at his feet. 'Wait a minute, or I shall be no better off than I was last time.'