"Quite so," he laughed. "One would never believe that she's nearly sixty. She's as vivacious and merry as a woman half her age. I've myself been surprised at her sprightliness often and often." Again and again I endeavoured to turn the conversation back to the identity of Mabel's former lover, but he either did not know or purposely refused to tell me. He spoke now and then with an intentional vagueness, as though his loyalty to the Ansons prevented him from betraying any confidences reposed in him as a friend of the family. Indeed, this cautiousness showed him to be a trustworthy man, and his character became thereby strengthened in my estimation. On first acquaintance I had instantly experienced a violent aversion to him, but now, on this walk together along the Fulham Road, I felt that we should probably end by becoming friends. He walked with long strides and a swinging, easy gait that seemed almost military, while his air of careless merriment as he laughed and joked, smoking the choice cigar which the man had handed to him in the hall just before our departure, gave him the aspect of an easy-going man-about-town. "I fully expect, my dear fellow," he laughed--"I fully expect that you'll be falling in love with the pretty Mabel if you're in her company very much." "You're chaffing," I protested, echoing his laugh. "Not at all," he asserted. "Only take care. Love-making with her is a dangerous pastime--devilish dangerous, I assure you." "Dangerous to the man's heart--eh?" "Yes," he responded in a vague tone, glancing at me curiously; "if you like to put it in that way." We had passed from the Fulham Road into the King's Road, Chelsea, and at that moment he halted suddenly at the corner of a street of high, regularly built houses, most of which were in darkness, saying--"I live down here. Come in and have a final whisky and soda with me; then you can take a cab back to the Strand. There are cabs all night on the rank in Sloane Square." "I fear it's too late," I protested, glancing at my watch, and finding it past one o'clock. "No, no, my dear fellow, come along," he urged. "You'll want a drink before you get home;" and, thus persuaded, I accompanied him up the street to one of the high houses, each exactly similar to its neighbour, with a flight of hearthstoned steps leading up to its front door, and a deep, grimy basement protected by a few yards of iron railings.