ow survive. It was marked
"Most Urgent," and had been left by him for delivery first thing in the
morning. He pulled open a drawer and swept into it all the letters he
had written save that one.

He locked that drawer; then unlocked another, and took thence a case of
pistols. With shaking hands he lifted out one of the weapons to examine
it, and all the while, of course, his thoughts were upon his wife and
Tremayne. He was considering how well-founded had been his every twinge
of jealousy; how wasted, how senseless the reactions of shame that had
followed them; how insensate his trust in Tremayne's honesty, and, above
all, with what crafty, treacherous subtlety Tremayne had drawn a
red herring across the trail of his suspicions by pretending to an
unutterable passion for Sylvia Armytage. It was perhaps that piece of
duplicity, worthy, he thought, of the Iscariot himself, that galled Sir
Terence now most sorely; that and the memory of his own silly credulity.
He had been such a ready dupe. How those two together must have laughed
at him! Oh, Tremayne had been very subtle! He had been the friend, the
quasi-brother, parading his affection for the Butler family to excuse
the familiarities with Lady O'Moy which he had permitted himself under
Sir Terence's very eyes. O'Moy thought of them as he had seen them
in the garden on the night of Redondo's ball, remembered the air of
transparent honesty by which that damned hypocrite when discovered had
deflected his just resentment.

Oh, there was no doubt that the treacherous blackguard had been subtle.
But--by God!--subtlety should be repaid with subtlety! He would deal
with Tremayne as cruelly as Tremayne had dealt with him; and his wanton
wife, too, should be repaid in kind. He beheld the way clear, in a flash
of wicked inspiration. He put back the pistol, slapped down the lid of
the box and replaced it in its drawer.

He rose, took up the letter to the Commissary-general, stepped briskly
to the door and pulled it open.

"Mullins!" he called sharply. "Are you there? Mullins?"

Came the sound of a scraping chair, and instantly that door at the end
of the corridor was thrown open, and Mullins stood silhouetted against
the light behind him. A moment he stood there, then came forward.

"You called, Sir Terence?"

"Yes." Sir Terence's voice was miraculously calm. His back was to the
light and his face in shadow, so that its drawn, haggard look was not
perceptible to the butler