The more I thought over the situation the less I liked it. It was evident that I had become the object of a sort of vendetta on the part of a very clever scoundrel, who would stick at nothing to obtain his revenge and was always ready to strike at me when I least expected it. To apply to the police would have been useless, as I had not a scrap of evidence against him. I had slipped through his fingers twice, but I could hardly count upon another such timely warning as I received in the hotel bar. The girl must have known that there was a plot against me, but why did she interfere? Was it caprice or a good instinct? In the hope of finding out something I dropped in two or three times at the hotel at different hours, but the few guarded inquiries I made led to nothing. The girl and her companions were merely chance customers, quite unknown to the hotel people, who would have been almost as disagreeably surprised as myself if Wyngate's little scheme had succeeded. Feeling that the air of London was becoming decidedly unwholesome, I went off to my friends at Folkestone, rather unwisely leaving my address, so that letters could be forwarded. Thanks to cheerful surroundings--the society of nice people has a really remarkable effect in changing the current of one's ideas--my enemy's sinister figure began to recede into the background. I was one of a house-party of about a dozen, and they were all intensely interested in my story, though nobody could suggest anything better than going abroad for a year or two. On the Tuesday after my arrival somebody mentioned that there was to be a ball on the following Monday at one of the hotels on the cliff, and we decided to make up a party and go. Tickets were taken, and, of course, we made no secret of our intention, which was known to the servants, tradespeople, and, in fact, anyone who might have taken an interest in our doings. On the Monday afternoon, while we were talking and tea-drinking in the drawing-room, Charlie Barbour, one of the party, came in, walked straight up to me, and remarked:-- "Well, old chap, there's some more fun in store for you." "What on earth do you mean?" I demanded, vaguely uneasy. "Only that your friend Wyngate is beginning again," he replied.