Something of my own excitement seemed to communicate itself to Olivant; he became suddenly serious. Thrusting open the doors of the cab, he caught up the bag that was beside him on the seat, and got out. He paid the cabman, and then handed me the bag. "Come along," he said quickly; "there's another way into the place down this side street. We can't stand talking here." So we gained his rooms in that secret fashion; and the moment we entered the manservant began to explain to him that Mr. Arnold Millard had called, and would call again. Olivant cut him short quickly. "There--that'll do; I know all about it," he said. "Understand that no one is to be admitted; I have not yet returned from the country. Any one who comes can leave a message." He seemed curiously perturbed, I thought; he did not even refer at first to my own escape, or to the fact of my being in London so strangely. He went to a window, and pulled aside a curtain, and looked out; turned away with an exclamation, and looked at me. "How long has he been there?" he demanded. "As I have told you--some hours," I said. He went to the sideboard, and poured some neat spirits into a glass, and drained it. Then he came back to me, and, after a moment's hesitation, began to question me. "Now, in the first place, how did he connect me with the business?" "I told him," I replied simply. "I had to tell him--I meant to tell him, for the sake of the girl." "Well, Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, then what brings you here? You tell the boy where to find me, and then come skulking with your tail between your legs to warn me. I don't understand it." "I wanted to save the girl," I answered fearlessly. "Don't you understand that he was to wait in a certain place, until I came to him, bringing the girl; he would have waited there for a time, and then have come to the house to find me? And don't you understand," I cried passionately, "that I'm not fighting for you now, but for him?" He turned to me quickly; looked at me curiously. "Fighting for him?" In the tense stillness of the room, as we looked into each other's eyes, it almost seemed to me that I could hear the echoing footsteps of the boy pacing up and down outside--waiting, with murder in his heart. My own heart was beating madly; I could scarcely get out the words I uttered. "Yes--fighting for him," I whispered--"won't you understand that? Twenty years ago a man like you wronged a woman with his tongue, and died because of that wrong. A boy--just such another as the boy who walks up and down outside there now--struck him dead, and stood under the gallows for his crime. I was that boy; and he who waits below is but myself, come back to life to do what I did. I am not fighting for you--you are nothing; I am here to-night to save the boy from my fate. For as there is a God above us, he is here to kill you!"