to speak to her! I shall follow her about until I can!" the
young man declared.

Wingrave glanced at him with a faint derisive smile. His clothes were
worn and shabby, he was badly in need of a shave and a wash. He sat
hunched up in a corner of the carriage, the picture of mute discomfort
and misery.

"Do you know who she is?" Wingrave asked.

"Mademoiselle Violet!" the young man answered.

"You are mistaken," Wingrave answered. "She is Lady Ruth Barrington,
wife of Lumley Barrington and daughter of the Earl of Haselton."

The young man was unmoved.

"She is Mademoiselle Violet," he declared.

The coupe drew up before the great block of buildings in which was
Wingrave's flat. The footman threw open the door.

"Come in with me," Wingrave said. "I have something more to say to you."

"I would rather not," the young man muttered, and would have slouched
off, but Wingrave caught him by the arm.

"Come!" he said firmly, and the youth obeyed.

Wingrave led the way into his sitting room and dismissed his servant who
was setting out a tray upon the sideboard.

"Sit down," he ordered, and his strange guest again obeyed. Wingrave
looked at him critically.

"It seems to me," he said deliberately, "that you are another of those
poor fools who chuck away their life and happiness and go to the dogs
because a woman had chosen to make a little use of them. You're out of
work, I suppose?"

"Yes!"

"Hungry?"

"I suppose so."

Wingrave brought a plate of sandwiches from the sideboard, and mixed a
whisky and soda. He set them down in front of his guest, and turned away
with the evening paper in his hand.

"I am going into the next room for some cigarettes," he remarked.

He was gone scarcely two minutes. When he returned, the room was in
darkness. He moved suddenly towards the electric lights, but was pushed
back by an unseen hand. A man's hot breath fell upon his cheek, a
hoarse, rasping voice spoke to him out of the black shadows.

"Don't touch the lights! Don't touch the lights, I say!"

"What folly is this?" Wingrave asked angrily. "Are you mad?"

"Not now," came the quick answer. "I have been. It has come to me here,
in the darkness. I know why she is angry, I know why she will not speak
to me. It is--because I failed."

Wingrave laughed, and moved towards the lights.

"We have had enough of this tomfoolery," he said scornfully. "If you
won't listen to reason--"

He never finished his sentence. He had