how frightened I was while you were
away. I knew you were with him, and I imagined you exposed to a hundred
dangers."

I told her where and with whom I had been.

"But why did he take you with him?" she inquired, when I had finished.
"I cannot understand that."

"I must confess that it has puzzled me also," I replied.

"The whole thing is very strange," she continued, "and I do not like the
look of it. We have reason to know that he does nothing without a
motive. But what can the motive have been in this particular instance?"

"That is more than I can say," I answered, and with that we changed the
subject, and interested ourselves in our own and more particular
concerns. So engrossing were they, and so pleasant were the thoughts
they conjured up, that when breakfast was finished I remained in the
dining-room, and did not open any of the morning papers which were
lying in a heap upon the library table. At half-past ten I said good-bye
to Valerie, who was practising in the drawing-room--Pharos I had not yet
seen--and, putting on my hat, left the house. It was the first
opportunity I had had since my return to London of visiting my studio,
and I was exceedingly anxious to discover how things had been
progressing there during my absence. It was a lovely morning for
walking, the sky being without a cloud, and the streets in consequence
filled with sunshine. In the Row a considerable number of men and women
were enjoying their morning canter, and nurse-maids in white dresses
were to be counted by the dozen in the streets leading to the Park. At
the corner of Hamilton Place a voice I recognised called to me to stop,
and on turning round I found my old friend, Sir George Legrath,
hastening after me.

"My dear Cyril," he said, as he shook hands with me, "I am indeed glad
to see you. I had no idea you had returned."

"I reached London yesterday morning," I answered, but in such a
constrained voice that he must have been dense indeed if he did not see
that something was amiss. "How did you know I had been away?"

"Why, my dear fellow," he answered, "have you forgotten that I sent you
a certain address in Naples? and then I called at your studio the
following morning, when your man told me you were abroad. But somehow
you don't look well. I hope nothing is the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing," I replied, almost sharply, and for the first time in
my life his presence was almost distasteful to me, though if I had been
asked th