easure of your name."

"Garfield--Hugh Garfield," I said.

"Mine is De Gex--Oswald De Gex," he said. "You may perhaps have heard
of me."

Heard of Oswald De Gex! Of course I had! He was reputed to be one of
the wealthiest of men, but he lived mostly in Paris or at his
magnificent villa outside Florence. It was common knowledge that he
had, during the war, invested a level million sterling in the War
Loan, while he was constantly giving great donations to various
charities. Somewhat eccentric, he preferred living abroad to spending
his time in England, because, it was said, of some personal quarrel
with another Member of the House of Commons which had arisen over a
debate soon after he had been elected.

I recollected, too, that his wife--whose handsome pictured face so
often appeared in the newspapers--was the daughter of a sporting
baronet, yet I had never heard any whisper of such matrimonial
troubles as he had just revealed to me.

He seemed a most easy-going man, whose clean-shaven face under the
softly shaded electric light did not now appear so sallow and foreign
as at first. His eyes were dark and rather deeply set, while his mouth
was narrow and refined, with a dimple in the centre of his chin. His
cast of features was certainly foreign, and handsome withal--a face
full of strength and character. When he spoke he slightly aspirated
his c's, and now and then he gesticulated when enthusiastic, due, of
course, to his long residence abroad.

Often I had read in the newspapers of the splendid mediaeval castle
which he had bought from the Earl of Weymount, a castle perched high
upon the granite rocks facing the Channel, between the Lizard and St.
Ruan. He had spent a fortune in restoring it, yet he very seldom
visited it. The historic place, with its wind-swept surroundings, was
given over to his agent at Truro and to a caretaker.

As a matter of fact, I had once seen it while on a summer tour in
Cornwall five years before, a great square keep with four towers,
storm-worn and forbidding--one of the most perfect specimens of the
mediaeval castles in England. I had been told by the man who drove the
hired car about its history, how in the early fourteenth century it
had been the home of William Auberville, a favourite of Edward II.
From the Aubervilles the old fortress had passed a century later into
the Weymount family, and had been their ancestral home for centuries.

I chanced to mention that I had seen the