f ingratitude that stung him at the moment rather than this
additional sign of coming evil. He was more than ordinarily gracious
as he put his wife into the carriage, and remarked that, considering
all things, the party had gone off very well. 'I only wish it could
have been done a little cheaper,' he said laughing. Then he went back
into the house, and up into the drawing-rooms which were now utterly
deserted. Some of the lights had been put out, but the men were busy
in the rooms below, and he threw himself into the chair in which the
Emperor had sat. It was wonderful that he should come to such a fate
as this;--that he, the boy out of the gutter, should entertain at his
own house, in London, a Chinese Emperor and English and German
Royalty,--and that he should do so almost with a rope round his neck.
Even if this were to be the end of it all, men would at any rate
remember him. The grand dinner which he had given before he was put
into prison would live in history. And it would be remembered, too,
that he had been the Conservative candidate for the great borough of
Westminster,--perhaps, even, the elected member. He, too, in his manner,
assured himself that a great part of him would escape Oblivion. 'Non
omnis moriar,' in some language of his own, was chanted by him within
his own breast, as he sat there looking out on his own magnificent suite
of rooms from the armchair which had been consecrated by the use of an
Emperor.

No policemen had come to trouble him yet. No hint that he would be
'wanted' had been made to him. There was no tangible sign that things
were not to go on as they went before. Things would be exactly as they
were before, but for the absence of those guests from the
dinner-table, and for the words which Miles Grendall had spoken. Had
he not allowed himself to be terrified by shadows? Of course he had
known that there must be such shadows. His life had been made dark by
similar clouds before now, and he had lived through the storms which
had followed them. He was thoroughly ashamed of the weakness which had
overcome him at the dinner-table, and of that palsy of fear which he
had allowed himself to exhibit. There should be no more shrinking such
as that. When people talked of him they should say that he was at
least a man.

As this was passing through his mind a head was pushed in through one
of the doors, and immediately withdrawn. It was his Secretary. 'Is
that you, Miles?' he said. 'Come in. I'm