orged a perfect melodramatic intrigue! To
think that I should have let my fancy run away with me in such a fashion,
and have worked myself into such a state of nervousness and alarm! I
could not help feeling a trifle ashamed. 'Well,' I pleaded, 'for my part,
I had never seen the men before, either in Wimbledon or elsewhere. Of
course, I am short-sighted, and my eyes sometimes play me tricks;
however, as you are sure--'

'Sure!' repeated Everson; and again he described the men in such a way as
to convince me that there was no mistake in the matter. 'Moreover,' he
added, 'I saw them go past the house this very morning when they went up
to town.'

'Well,' I rejoined, 'I suppose I am losing my head. Ten minutes ago I
could have sworn that those men were after me.'

'Your statement that you never saw them before,' said Everson, 'does not
surprise me. As a rule they go to town every morning, and as you are
seldom in Wimbledon in the evening you can't very well meet one another.'

'I suppose you regard me as a bit of a fool?' I inquired.

'Oh, no. The circumstances were curious enough, and in your place I might
have drawn the same conclusions. Only I don't think I should have hurried
off to a friend's house and have nearly "knocked" it down.'

We both laughed, and then I apologised.

'As a matter of fact,' said I, 'all this is the natural outcome of
events. The beginning was long ago. I have a secret which I find haunting
me when I get up in the morning; all day long it occupies my mind; at
night it clings to me and follows me through my sleep. And I grow more
and more suspicious; it seems as if everybody I meet has designs upon my
secret. Every Frenchman I don't know is a detective or a process server
with a copy of the Versailles judgment in his pockets. And thus I shall
soon become a monomaniac if I do not discover some remedy. I think I
shall try the shower-bath system.'

Then I recalled experiences dating from long prior to M. Zola's arrival
in England. First mysterious offers of important documents bearing on the
Dreyfus case--documents forged a la Lemercier-Picard, hawked about by
adventurers who tried to dispose of them, now in Paris, now in Brussels,
and now in London. Needless to say that I, like others, had rejected them
with contempt. Then had come an incident that Everson already know of: a
stranger with divers aliases beseeching me for private interviews in M.
Zola's interest, a request which I ultimately