side and put the key in his pocket.

'You will keep watch here,' he said to the commissionaire, 'through the
night. You can sit on this chair. Don't go to sleep. If you hear the
slightest noise in the room blow your cab-whistle; I will arrange to
answer the signal. If there is no noise do nothing whatever. I don't
want this talked about, you understand. I shall trust you; you can trust
me.'

'But the servants will see me here when they get up to-morrow,' said the
commissionaire, with a faint smile, 'and they will be pretty certain to
ask what I'm doing of up here. What shall I say to 'em?'

'You've been a soldier, haven't you?' asked Racksole.

'I've seen three campaigns, sir,' was the reply, and, with a gesture of
pardonable pride, the grey-haired fellow pointed to the medals on his
breast.

'Well, supposing you were on sentry duty and some meddlesome person in
camp asked you what you were doing--what should you say?'

'I should tell him to clear off or take the consequences, and pretty
quick too.'

'Do that to-morrow morning, then, if necessary,' said Racksole, and
departed.

It was then about one o'clock a.m. The millionaire retired to bed--not
his own bed, but a bed on the seventh storey. He did not, however, sleep
very long. Shortly after dawn he was wide awake, and thinking busily
about Jules.

He was, indeed, very curious to know Jules' story, and he determined, if
the thing could be done at all, by persuasion or otherwise, to extract
it from him. With a man of Theodore Racksole's temperament there is no
time like the present, and at six o'clock, as the bright morning sun
brought gaiety into the window, he dressed and went upstairs again
to the eighth storey. The commissionaire sat stolid, but alert on his
chair, and, at the sight of his master, rose and saluted.

'Anything happened?' Racksole asked.

'Nothing, sir.'

'Servants say anything?'

'Only a dozen or so of 'em are up yet, sir. One of 'em asked what I was
playing at, and so I told her I was looking after a bull bitch and a
litter of pups that you was very particular about, sir.'

'Good,' said Racksole, as he unlocked the door and entered the room. All
was exactly as he had left it, except that Jules who had been lying
on his back, had somehow turned over and was now lying on his face. He
gazed silently, scowling at the millionaire. Racksole greeted him and
ostentatiously took a revolver from his hip-pocket and laid it on the
dressing-t