uest at Runton Place."

Andrew was silent for a moment. He touched his spectacles with a weary
gesture, and covered his eyes with his hand.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose you are right. I suppose I am a fool.
But--the voice!"

"The laughter of women," said Duncombe, "is music all the world over.
One cannot differ very much from the other."

"You are quite wrong, George," Andrew said. "The voices of women vary
like the thumb-marks of criminals. There are no two attuned exactly
alike. It is the receptive organs that are at fault. We, who have lost
one sense, find the others a little keener. The laughter of that
girl--George, will you keep me a few days longer? Somehow I cannot bring
myself to leave until I have heard her voice once more."

Duncombe laughed heartily.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I shall bless your uncommonly sensitive ears
if they keep you here with me even for an extra few days. You shall have
your opportunity, too. I always dine at Runton Place after our first
shoot, and I know Runton quite well enough to take you. You shall sit at
the same table. Hullo, what's this light wobbling up the drive?"

He strolled a yard or so away, and returned.

"A bicycle," he remarked. "One of the grooms has been down to the
village. I shall have to speak to Burdett in the morning. I will not
have these fellows coming home at all sorts of times in the morning.
Come along in, Andrew. Just a drain, eh? And a cigarette--and then to
bed. Runton's keen on his bag, and they say that German, Von Rothe, is a
fine shot. Can't let them have it all their own way."

"No fear of that," Andrew answered, stepping through the window. "I'll
have the cigarette, please, but I don't care about any more whisky. The
'Field' mentioned your name only a few weeks ago as one of the finest
shots at rising birds in the country, so I don't think you need fear the
German."

"I ought to hold my own with the partridges," Duncombe admitted, helping
himself from the siphon, "but come in, come in!"

A servant entered with a telegram upon a silver salver.

"A boy has just brought this from Runton, sir," he said.

Duncombe tore it open. He was expecting a message from his gun-maker,
and he opened it without any particular interest, but as he read, his
whole manner changed. He held the sheet in front of him long enough to
have read it a dozen times. He could not restrain the slight start--a
half exclamation. Then his teeth came together. He remembe