xit, eh?" asked the man,
with a short, harsh laugh. "I quite expected as much. That is why I
intended to have a straight business talk with him."

"He is in no mood to talk business just now," said my wife, and
then--and only then--did I recollect that this man was the associate
of the assassin Reckitt.

This fact alone aroused my antagonism towards him. Surely I was glad
that Pennington had got away if, as it seemed, he did not wish to meet
his unwelcome visitor.

"He _shall_ talk business!" cried the Frenchman, "and very serious
business!"

Then turning, he hurried along the corridor in the direction of the
main staircase and disappeared.

"What does all this mean?" I asked Sylvia, who still stood there pale
and panting.

"I--I don't know, Owen," she gasped. Then, rushing across to the
window, she looked out.

"That man has gone!" she cried. "I--I knew he was watching, but had no
idea of the reason."

"He was evidently watching for your father," I said.

"He was watching us--you and I--not him."

We heard two men pass the door quickly. One of them exclaimed in
French--

"See! The window at the end! It would be easy to get from there to the
roof of the next house."

"Yes!" cried his companion. "He has evidently gone that way. We must
follow."

"Hark!" I said. "Listen to what they are saying! Delanne is following
your father!"

"He is his worst enemy," she said simply. "Do you not remember that he
was watching him in Manchester?"

The fact that he was an associate of Reckitt puzzled me. I felt highly
resentful that the fellow should have thus intruded upon my privacy
and broken up my very pleasant evening. He had intruded himself upon
me once before, causing me both annoyance and chagrin. I looked forth
into the corridor, and there saw the figures of two men in the act of
getting through the window at the end, while a waiter and a
_femme-de-chambre_ stood looking on in surprise.

"Who is that man?" I asked of Sylvia, as I turned back into our salon.

"His real name is Guertin," she replied.

"He told me that he knew you."

"Perhaps," she laughed, just a trifle uneasily, I thought. "I only
know that he is my father's enemy. He is evidently here to hunt him
down, and to denounce him."

"As what?"

But she only shrugged her shoulders. Next instant I saw that I had
acted wrongly in asking Sylvia to expose her own father, whatever his
faults might have been.

Again somebody rushed past the do