es; each knew what the other was thinking
now.

The house in Russell Square, the quiet house in the corner where the
cabs do not pass, was lighted up and astir when they reached it. The old
butler held open the door with a smile of welcome and a faint aroma of
whisky. The luggage had been discreetly removed. Joseph had gone to Mr.
Meredith's chambers. Guy Oscard led the way to the smoking-room at the
back of the house--the room wherein the eccentric Oscard had written his
great history--the room in which Victor Durnovo had first suggested the
Simiacine scheme to the historian's son.

The two survivors of the originating trio passed into this room
together, and closed the door behind them.

"The worst of one's own private tragedies is that they are usually only
comedies in disguise," said Jack Meredith oracularly.

Guy Oscard grunted. He was looking for his pipe.

"If we heard this of any two fellows except ourselves we should think it
an excellent joke," went on Meredith.

Oscard nodded. He lighted his pipe, and still he said nothing.

"Hang it!" exclaimed Jack Meredith, suddenly throwing himself back in
his chair, "it is a good joke."

He laughed softly, and all the while his eyes, watchful, wise, anxious,
were studying Guy Oscard's face.

"He is harder hit than I am," he was reflecting. "Poor old Oscard!"

The habit of self-suppression was so strong upon him--acquired as a mere
social duty--that it was only natural for him to think less of himself
than of the expediency of the moment. The social discipline is as
powerful an agent as that military discipline that makes a man throw
away his own life for the good of the many.

Oscard laughed, too, in a strangely staccato manner.

"It is rather a sudden change," observed Meredith; "and all brought
about by your coming into that room at that particular moment--by
accident."

"Not by accident," corrected Oscard, speaking at last. "I was brought
there and pushed into the room."

"By whom?"

"By your father."

Jack Meredith sat upright. He drew his curved hand slowly down over his
face--keen and delicate as was his mind--his eyes deep with thought.

"The Guv'nor," he said slowly. "The Guv'nor--by God!"

He reflected for some seconds.

"Tell me how he did it," he said curtly.

Oscard told him, rather incoherently, between the puffs. He did not
attempt to make a story of it, but merely related the facts as they had
happened to him. It is probable that