Here was something happening which Huckaby dreaded. Quixtus was beginning to lose interest in the adventure. In another month he might regard it with repugnance. He must start it now with Mrs. Fontaine in Paris, or the whole conspiracy must collapse. The thought urged Huckaby to fresh efforts of persuasion. “Revenge is sweet and worth the trouble,” he said at last. “Yes,” replied Quixtus, in a low voice. “Revenge would be sweet.” Huckaby glanced at him swiftly. Beyond the iniquity of Marrable, he was ignorant of the precise nature of the injuries which Quixtus had sustained at the hands of fortune. Was it possible that a woman had played him false? But what had this fossil of a man to do with women? “I, too,” said he, with malicious intent; “would like to pay off old scores against a faithless sex. You have found them faithless, haven’t you?” Quixtus’s brow darkened. “As false as hell,” said he. “I knew a woman had treated you shamefully,” said Huckaby, after a pause during which Quixtus had fallen into a dull reverie. “Infamously,” replied Quixtus, below his breath. He looked away into the distance, madness gathering in his eyes. For the moment he seemed to forget the other’s presence. Huckaby took his opportunity. He said in a whisper: “She betrayed you?” Quixtus nodded. Huckaby watched him narrowly, an absurd suspicion beginning to form itself in his mind. By his chance phrase about revenge he had put his friend’s unsound mind on the track of a haunting tragedy. Who was the woman? His wife? But she had died beloved of him, and for years, until this madness overtook him, he had spoken of her with the reverence due to a departed saint. It was a puzzle; the solution peculiarly interesting. How should he obtain it? Quixtus was not the man to blab his intimate secrets into the ear of his hired bravo—for as such he knew that Quixtus regarded him. It behoved him not to change the minor key of this conversation. “A man’s foes,” he quoted in a murmur, “are ever of his own household.” Quixtus nodded again three or four times, with parted lips. “His own household. Those dearest to him. The woman he loved and his best friend.” In spite of his suspicion, Huckaby was astounded at the inadvertent confession. In his last days of grace he had known Mrs. Quixtus and the best friend. Swiftly his mind went back. He remembered vaguely their familiar intercourse. What was the man’s name? He groped and found it. “Hammersley,” he said, aloud. At the word, Quixtus started to his feet and swept his hand over his face. “What are you talking about? What do you know against Hammersley?” A lurid ray shot athwart his darkened mind. He realised the betrayal of his most jealously guarded secret to Huckaby. He shrank back, growing hot and cold through shame. “Hammersley played me false over some money affairs,” he said, cunningly. “It’s a black business which I will tell you about one of these days.” “And the woman?” asked Huckaby.