ment. He was
impelled to recapitulate his injunctions; but he forbore. He put out his
hand abruptly. "Good-night, Justin."

Justin took the hand and pressed it. The door opened, and Leduc entered.

"Captain Mainwaring and Mr. Falgate are here, sir, and would speak with
you," he announced.

Mr. Caryll knit his brows a moment. His acquaintance with both men was
of the slightest, and it was only upon reflection that he bethought him
they would, no doubt, be come in the matter of his affair with Rotherby,
which in the stress of his interview with Sir Richard had been quite
forgotten. He nodded.

"Wait upon Sir Richard to the door, Leduc," he bade his man. "Then
introduce these gentlemen."

Sir Richard had drawn back a step. "I trust neither of these gentlemen
knows me," he said. "I would not be seen here by any that did. It might
compromise you."

But Mr. Caryll belittled Sir Richard's fears. "Pooh! 'Tis very unlike,"
said he; whereupon Sir Richard, seeing no help for it, went out quickly,
Leduc in attendance.

Lord Rotherby's friends in the ante-room paid little heed to him as
he passed briskly through. Surveillance came rather from an entirely
unsuspected quarter. As he left the house and crossed the square, a
figure detached itself from the shadow of the wall, and set out to
follow. It hung in his rear through the filthy, labyrinthine streets
which Sir Richard took to Charing Cross, followed him along the Strand
and up Bedford Street, and took note of the house he entered at the
corner of Maiden Lane.

CHAPTER XI. THE ASSAULT-AT-ARMS

The meeting was appointed by my Lord Rotherby for seven o'clock next
morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It is true that Lincoln's Inn Fields
at an early hour of the day was accounted a convenient spot for the
transaction of such business as this; yet, considering that it was in
the immediate neighborhood of Stretton House, overlooked, indeed, by the
windows of that mansion, it is not easy to rid the mind of a suspicion
that Rotherby appointed that place of purpose set, and with intent to
mark his contempt and defiance of his father, with whom he supposed Mr.
Caryll to be in some league.

Accompanied by the Duke of Wharton and Major Gascoigne, Mr. Caryll
entered the enclosure promptly as seven was striking from St. Clement
Danes. They had come in a coach, which they had left in waiting at the
corner of Portugal Row.

As they penetrated beyond the belt of trees they found that