"I do accept your word," he said bluntly. "I confess I have entertained misgivings... That is hardly surprising, I think, considering how much is at stake. But I'll take your word, Mr Lawless... And I accept your conditions. When you have anything of importance to communicate you will let me hear from you..." When Lawless got back to his hotel that night he was astonished to find a visitor waiting for him--a woman. She had been shown into a private room. The hour was unusual, so were the circumstances; but the management had no wish to offend so good a client as Lawless; therefore the lady was, after a little difficulty, admitted; and Lawless on his return was discreetly informed of her presence. He received the information in silence, betraying none of the astonishment that moved him, which was considerable. He could not for the life of him imagine who the lady could be. He was no wiser on entering the room where she was. She was a tall woman of commanding presence, very fashionably dressed--almost too fashionably to suggest a perfect taste. There was--Lawless was quick to observe it--the unmistakable stamp of the demi-mondaine about her. She looked round as he entered and closed the door behind him, and then very slowly got up from the sofa on which she had been seated. Her movements were extraordinarily languid for a woman of such splendid physique, and less graceful than deliberately sensuous, Lawless decided. Something about the woman stirred a chord of memory in his mind, as he stood critically surveying her with a look of cool inquiry in his eyes. The figure was vaguely familiar. The face he could not see; she was so heavily veiled that he could only trace a shadowy outline of her features. "This is an unexpected honour," he said, with ironical politeness. "May I ask to what I am indebted, and to whom, for this amazing condescension?" She held out a pair of well-gloved hands towards him. "You have forgotten... so soon?" she said in a low voice, the deep tones of which sounded nervously tremulous. "I've a memory no longer and no shorter than most men's," he retorted, not touching the outstretched hands. "If you'd raise your veil..." She put up one hand to the dense folds that concealed her face, but she did not lift them. She waited, looking at him through their disfiguring thickness with wide, smiling, observant eyes. "And this is your welcome after all this while! ... your welcome to _me_! ... No wonder those tiresome people downstairs were so reluctant to admit me! ... I only got round them by telling them I was your wife." "The devil you did!" ejaculated Lawless. He did not speak loudly His voice had dropped to a low note of caution. He approached nearer. Astonishment had driven the irony out of his eyes, and left in its stead an expression of strong curiosity. "Oh, Hughie!" she said reproachfully... "To think that you could forget..."