" He motioned
toward my neck with his slim finger.

"Yes, you saved my life," I said, "and I have hated you for that ever
since."

"Will you make me one promise?" he asked.

"Perhaps, but not in advance."

"And will you keep it?"

"If I make it."

"Will you promise me to do one thing you have already promised to do?"

"Orme, I am in no mood to sit here and gossip like an old woman."

"Oh, don't cut up ugly. You're done out of it all around, in any case.
Belknap, it seems, was to beat both you and me. Then why should not you
and I try to forget? But now as to this little promise. I was only going
to ask you to do as much as Belknap, or less."

"Very well, then."

"I want you to promise to marry Grace Sheraton."

I laughed in his face. "I thought you knew me better than that, Orme.
I'll attend to my own matters for myself. I shall not even ask you why
you want so puerile a promise. I am much of a mind to shoot you. Tell
me, who are you, and what are you, and what are you doing in this
country?"

"Do you really want to know?" he smiled.

"Assuredly I do. I demand it."

"I believe I will tell you, then," he said quietly. He mused for a time
before he raised his head and went on.

"I am Charles Gordon Orme, Marquis of Bute and Rayne. Once I lived in
England. For good reasons I have since lived elsewhere. I am what is
known as a black sheep--a very, very black one."

"Yes, you are a retrograde, a renegade, a blackguard and a murderer," I
said to him, calmly.

"All of those things, and much more," he admitted, cheerfully and
calmly. "I am two persons, or more than two. I can't in the least make
all this plain to you in your grade of intelligence. Perhaps you have
heard of exchangeable personalities?"

"I have heard of double personalities, and double lives," I said, "but I
have never admired them."

"We will waive your admiration. Let me say that I can exchange my
personality. The Jews used to say that men of certain mentality were
possessed of a devil. I only say that I was a student in India. One
phrase is good as another. The Swami Hamadata was my teacher."

"It would have been far better for you had you never known him, and
better for many others," was my answer to his astonishing discourse.

"Perhaps; but I am only explaining as you have requested. I am a Raja
Yogi. I have taken the eight mystic steps. For years, even here in this
country, I have kept up the sacred exercises of breath, of postu