self on the success of this, his first step in a
diplomacy leading to war, devoutly hoping that the friend to whom Mr.
Stanmore should refer him might prove equally fierce and hot-headed.
He bowed with the studied courtesy assumed by every man concerned,
either as principal or second, in an act of premeditated homicide, and
smoothed his hat preparatory to taking leave.

"If you will kindly favour me with your friend's name," said he in a
tone of excessive suavity, "I will wish you good-evening. I fear I
have already kept you too long from dinner."

Dick considered for a few seconds, while he ran over in his mind the
sum-total of intimates on whom he could rely in an emergency like the
present. It is wonderful how short such lists are. Mr. Stanmore could
not recall more than half-a-dozen, and of these four were out of town,
and one lay ill in bed. The only available man of the six was Simon
Perkins. Dick Stanmore knew that he could trust him to act as a stanch
friend through thick and thin, but he had considerable scruples
in availing himself of the painter's assistance under existing
circumstances.

Time pressed, however, and there was nothing for it but to furnish Mr.
Ryfe with Simon's name and address in Berners Street.

"Can I see him at once?" asked Tom, strangely anxious to hasten
matters, as it seemed to Dick Stanmore, who could not help wondering
whether, had the visitor been a combatant, he would have proved
equally eager for the fray.

"I am afraid not till to-morrow," was the reply. "He has left his
painting-room by this time and gone out of town. I cannot ask you to
take another journey to-night. Allow me to offer you a glass of sherry
before you go."

Tom declined the proffered hospitality, bowing himself out, as
befitted the occasion, with much ceremonious politeness, and leaving
the other to proceed to his club-dinner in a frame of mind that
considerably modified the healthy appetite he had brought with him
half-an-hour ago.

He congratulated himself, however, before his soup was done, that he
had not sent Mr. Ryfe down to the cottage at Putney. He could not bear
to think of that peaceful, happy retreat, the nest of his dove, the
home of his heart, as desecrated by such a presence on such an errand.
"Come what might," he thought, "Nina must be kept from all terrors and
anxieties of this kind--all knowledge of such wild, wicked doings as
these."

So thinking, and reflecting, also, that it was ver