off all snug and comfortable by the
night train. There's the second lunch bell going now. Come along down,
and we'll get outside that bottle of Heidsieck, for I own I fairly lost
the bet."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roden Musgrave was neither young nor old, but just touching middle age;
a vague term, however, and variable, according to the inclination of
whoever may define it. He was a clean-built, well-set-up man, whose
dark hair was just beginning to be tipped here and there with frost.
His face was clean shaven, save for the moustache which helped to hide a
firm, though somewhat melancholy, mouth. He had good, clear-cut
features and rather deep-set grey eyes, in which there was something
which seemed to tell that he had known strange experiences; an
impression which was heightened by a curious, indented double scar on
the left side of the chin, and which, standing out livid from a
complexion sun-tanned almost to swarthiness, gave an expression at times
bordering on the sinister. Somehow, too, the face was not that of a man
whose record is open to all comers. There was a schooled and guarded
look upon it, which seemed to show plainly enough to the close observer
that it was not the face its owner had started with in life. But what
such record might be the curious could only guess, for this man was the
closest of mortals. On the topic dearest to the heart of most of us--
self to wit--he never talked, and after weeks of the unguarded
companionship of life at sea, during which people are apt to wax
confidential--a great deal too much so--not one of his fellow-passengers
knew a jot more about him than when he first stepped on board; that is
to say nothing.

"Who the devil is that fellow Musgrave?" queried the smoke-room.

"Oh, some card-sharper, most likely," would reply a Kimberley-bound Jew,
disgusted in that he had met with more than his match. But this of
course was no more than conjecture, and a satisfactory answer was not to
be had.

"Now who can that Mr Musgrave be?" was the more soft-toned
interrogative of the saloon. "Surely you must know, Captain Cheyne.
What is he going out for?"

To which the captain would reply, with a laugh of cynical delight, that
he knew no more than they did, but that the readiest way of solving the
difficulty would be to apply to Musgrave himself, drawing down from the
discomfited fair ones the oft-repeated verdict that he