"There was a rather one-sided fight, because Tagg and I took them by surprise, but the Baron escaped uninjured, or nearly so." "Did they rob him, then?" "I meant that he sustained a couple of slight cuts, and therein you have another valid reason for his anxiety that the affair should not reach your ears." Though her own manner was imperious enough, Irene was manifestly surprised at the annoyance apparent in Dick's voice. She did not realize that he was wroth because of the check imposed by the promise exacted in London. If he told her of the theft of the papyrus, and explained the few details he possessed with regard to von Kerber's declared enemy, he would only add fuel to the distrust already planted in her heart. That would achieve no tangible good, while no casuistry would wipe away the stain on his own honor. So here was he, burning with desire to assure her of his devotion, forced into silent pact with the very conspiracy she was denouncing. She attributed his sudden gruffness to a distaste for hearing his exploits lauded. "At any rate, you now understand my motive for speaking so plainly, Mr. Royson," she went on. "You may feel bound by your arrangement with the Baron, and I have no fault to find on that score, but I am quite, certain, since I have learnt who you are, that you will not lend yourself to any discreditable plan which may be in the minds of the remarkable pair who are now looking at us, and wondering, no doubt, what we are discussing so earnestly." Royson saw that von Kerber and Mrs. Haxton were awaiting them at the door of the post-office, but the personal allusion to himself, which Miss Fenshawe had dropped, in parenthesis as it were, into her concluding sentence, demanded a question. "Will you enlighten me on the interesting point of my identity, then?" he asked rapidly. "Oh yes. I take it that your Port Said letter was opened and read. Mrs. Haxton is skilled at jumping to conclusions, I fancy. She said she recognized your name at Marseilles--when the telegram arrived, you know--but, if that were so, it is strange that she should keep the knowledge to herself until all of us were at dinner after leaving Port Said. I also can add two and two occasionally, and I have not the slightest doubt that something in your letter gave her the necessary clue. Was she mistaken?" "In what?" "In the belief that you are the nephew of a baronet, and his heir?" He laughed pleasantly. After years of indifference, his birthright was pursuing him with a certain zest. "You could not have chosen a better example of those half-truths you complain of," said he. "I admit that my uncle is Sir Henry Royson, but his heir he vowed I should not be when last we met. Yet the letter you speak of was from his solicitor, and it held out a vague suggestion of possibilities which, to put it mildly, would make Mrs. Haxton a remarkably good guesser."