o not wish to leave the
hotel just at present."

"Do you want me?" Aynesworth asked.

"Not until five o'clock," Wingrave answered. "I should be glad if you
would leave me now, and return at that hour. In the meantime, I have a
commission for you."

"Good!" Aynesworth declared. "What is it?"

"You will go," Wingrave directed, "to No. 13, Cadogan Street, and you
will enquire for Lady Ruth Barrington. If she should be out, ascertain
the time of her return, and wait for her."

"If she is out of town?"

"She is in London," Wingrave answered. "I have seen her from the window
this morning. You will give her a message. Say that you come from me,
and that I desire to see her tomorrow. The time and place she can fix,
but I should prefer not to go to her house."

Aynesworth stooped down to relight his cigarette. He felt that Wingrave
was watching him, and he wished to keep his face hidden.

"I am unknown to Lady Ruth," he remarked. "Supposing she should refuse
to see me?"

Wingrave looked at him coldly.

"I have told you what I wish done," he said. "The task does not seem
to be a difficult one. Please see to it that I have an answer by five
o'clock-----"

Aynesworth lunched with a few of his particular friends at the club.
They heard of his new adventure with somewhat doubtful approbation.

"You'll never stand the routine, old chap!"

"And what about your own work!"

"What will the Daily Scribbler people say?"

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't imagine it will last very long," he answered, "and I shall get
a fair amount of time to myself. The work I do on the Daily Scribbler
doesn't amount to anything. It was a chance I simply couldn't refuse."

The editor of a well-known London paper leaned back in his chair, and
pinched a cigar carefully.

"You'll probably find the whole thing a sell," he remarked. "The story,
as Lovell told it, sounded dramatic enough, and if the man were to come
back to life again, fresh and vigorous, things might happen, provided,
of course, that Lovell was right in his suppositions. But ten or twelve
years' solitary confinement, although it mayn't sound much on paper, is
enough to crush all the life and energy out of a man."

Aynesworth shook his head.

"You haven't seen him," he said. "I have!"

"What's he like, Walter?" another man asked.

"I can't describe him," Aynesworth answered. "I shouldn't like to try.
I'll bring him here some day. You fellows shall see him fo