k to Ralph.

"Have you done anything yet," I asked, "about this?"

Ralph shook his head.

"I thought you would not mind calling for me," he remarked. "I would
like to be civil to any one who has done anything for Dicky. If he
shoots, you might take him down to the Court. Mary's there, of course,
but that would not matter. There is the whole of the bachelor wing at
your disposal."

I nodded.

"I will look after it for you," I said. "You can leave it in my
hands. It is rather an odd thing, but I believe that I have met this
man in Paris."

My brother was not much interested. I was glad of the excuse to bury
myself in the pages of the _Daily Telegraph_. Here at last, then,
was something definite. The man Delora was not a fraud. He was
everything that he professed to be--a wealthy man, without a doubt. I
suddenly began to see things differently. What a coward I had been to
think of running away! After all, there might be some explanation,
even, of that meeting between the girl and Louis.

We finished our breakfast, and my brother hobbled over to the
window. For several minutes he remained there, looking out upon the
street with the aimless air of a man who scarcely knows what to do
with his day.

"What are you thinking of doing, Austen?" he asked me.

"I had no plans," I answered. "Some part of the day I thought I would
look up these people--the Deloras."

Ralph nodded and turned to his servant.

"Goreham," he said, "I will have the motor in an hour. Come and dine
with me, will you, Austen?" he said, turning to me. "I don't suppose
you will go down to Feltham for a day or two."

"I will come, with pleasure," I answered. "Where are you going to
motor to?"

Ralph answered a little vaguely. He had some calls to make, and he was
not altogether sure. I left him in a few minutes and descended to the
street. I turned westward and walked for some little distance, when
suddenly I was attracted by the sight of a familiar figure issuing
from the door of a large, gray stone house. We came face to face upon
the pavement. It was the man whose life I had probably saved only a
few hours ago.

He lifted his hat, and his dark eyes sought mine interrogatively.

"You were not, by chance, on the way to call upon me?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Not only," I answered, "was I ignorant of where you lived, but I do
not even know your name."

"Both matters," he remarked quietly, "are unimportant."

I glanced at the house