a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly, "I
don't _suppose_ I shall ever see you again. In future we are not _likely_
to meet."

"The lady and the lunatic?" said he. "Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and
better luck."

"Good-bye," she answered coldly, and added as they parted, "my mother, of
course, is extremely angry with you."

"There," he said with a smile, "you see I still come in useful."

She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the
hotel.

"It seems to me," he reflected, "that I shall have to set out on my
adventures again alone."

CHAPTER VI.

The Baron's natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all
night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The
Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word,
and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied
curtly, as he went to the door, "Ze 5.30."

"And where do you go now?"

"Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone."

"Good-bye, then, Baron," said Mr Bunker. "I think I shall go up to town."

"Go, zen," replied the Baron, opening the door; "I haf no furzer vish to
see a treacherous _sponge_ zat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost
takes money."

He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would
have seen a look in Mr Bunker's face that he had never seen before. He
half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought
with his lips very tight set.

All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the
Baron had known.

"I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg," he said to
himself; "but the weapons I shall choose myself."

He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a wire, and then with
considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the
hotel.

* * * * *

When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron's
directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still
further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more
sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had
vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them
to be found.

"Ze rascal!" he muttered; "I did not zink he was zief as well."

It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley s