of his mysterious business to declare ourselves.

For myself, I had but little anxiety as to the result. I had caught
him looking at us on board the steamer, when we were together, openly
lovemaking, and his expression then had been wistful, but not unkind
nor unfavourable. Therefore, I had great hope.

"If he will not give his consent, darling," my little sweetheart had
whispered often in my ear, "I shall tell him that I will go and be a
nun."

"But you _won't_, will you, little one?" I always asked anxiously, "you
won't go and leave me?"

And then she would generally make the naive confession--

"I would rather marry _you_, dear, than be a nun."

After ringing the changes between the Foreign Office, the Home Office,
and Scotland Yard for a week, Don Juan suddenly expressed his
determination to go down to Bath. I was asked to secure rooms for them
at the "Magnifique"; it was to be a fairly long stay, and Dolores was
going too.

The proceedings at Bath mystified me more than ever. The first thing
that happened, when we were installed at the "Magnifique," was, that
Inspector Bull accompanied the head of the police on a visit of
ceremony and absolutely raised his hat to _me_ on discovering that I
was _a la suite_ of Don Juan d'Alta! I was never more thunderstruck in
my life, and was hardly able to return such an unexpected act of
courtesy, through astonishment.

The next thing was a ceremonious visit to Cruft's Folly in a motor car.
There we found the inspector keeping guard over a curious array of
articles assembled on a table on the ground floor of the tower; they
were a most extraordinary collection. First, there was a lady's
handkerchief, and I identified it at once as a fellow one to that which
I had found in the still warm bed of the old lady in Monmouth Street.

"Are you quite certain," inquired Don Juan, when I had told him about
it in answer to his question. "Are you certain the handkerchief you
found was like this?"

"As certain as I stand here," I answered; "if there is any doubt about
it I can get the other, for it is only at the hotel."

"Very well," replied the old gentleman with an air of satisfaction,
making a note in a book, "that settles that matter. Now for the next.
Have you ever seen that silver cigarette box before?"

I took up the article he referred to, which was standing by the
handkerchief on the table, and examined it; it might, or might not,
have been that case from which