l you everything, and you may rely upon his knowledge and discretion.
If you are still determined not to see me, I shall be quite content that
you should learn the truth from him. But I beg you, by everything you
hold dear, not to disregard my warning. Count Rossano is in peril of the
gravest sort, and if you should hand Miss Ros-sano's gift to him
without inquiry, you may sign his death-warrant, and will certainly give
yourself grounds for the bitterest self-reproaches you have ever known."

Hinge undertook, with a full sense of the responsibility which rested
upon him, to deliver this letter, and went away with it; but in ten
minutes he came back with the envelope unopened.

"_I_ got to 'er ladyship," he said; "but the minute I told 'er where I
came from she threw the letter on the table and told me to bring it back
again. I tried my best, sir, but she wouldn't listen to me. She ordered
me out of the room, sir; and when I tried to tell 'er what the matter
was, she rung the bell and walked out. You can't follow a lady into 'er
bedroom, sir; and say what I would I couldn't get 'er to let me get
a word in edgeways. A servant comes up in answer to the ring, and 'er
ladyship, from inside 'er bedroom, says, 'Waiter, request that man to
leave my room, and see as 'e don't trouble me no more.'"

"Where are Lady Rollinson's rooms?" I asked him, desperately.

"They're in this corridor, sir," Hinge answered; "at the far end,
numbers 38, 39, and 40."

I snatched up the letter, strode along the corridor, and knocked at the
middle door of the suite. Lady Rollinson herself answered my summons,
and before I could speak a word slammed the door indignantly in my face
and turned the key. I heard the bolt shoot in the lock, and a second
later an angry peal at the bell sounded. I stood there, altogether
irresolute and disconsolate. A waiter came flying up the stairs, and,
bustling past me, knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" cried her ladyship's voice from within. "Send the manager
to me. Tell him that I am being persecuted, and that I demand his
protection."

What was a man to do in a case of that kind? I could simply retire to
my own apartments; but I did it in such a passion of wrath and impotence
that I could have taken that stupid and credulous old woman by the
shoulders and shaken her to reason. I was too angry and disheartened to
speak a word; but while I was pacing up and down the room, and wondering
what my next move shoul