: what
did my fate matter to him? Never mind; this should be the end between
him and me as well; it was the end of everything, this dark night's
work! I would go and tell him so. I would jump into a cab and drive
there and then to his accursed rooms. But first I must escape from the
trap in which he had been so ready to leave me. And on the very steps
I drew back in despair. They were searching the shrubberies between
the drive and the road; a policeman's lantern kept flashing in and out
among the laurels, while a young man in evening-clothes directed him
from the gravel sweep. It was this young man whom I must dodge, but at
my first step in the gravel he wheeled round, and it was Raffles
himself.

"Hulloa!" he cried. "So you've come up to join the dance as well! Had
a look inside, have you? You'll be better employed in helping to draw
the cover in front here. It's all right, officer--only another
gentleman from the Empress Rooms."

And we made a brave show of assisting in the futile search, until the
arrival of more police, and a broad hint from an irritable sergeant,
gave us an excellent excuse for going off arm-in-arm. But it was
Raffles who had thrust his arm through mine. I shook him off as we
left the scene of shame behind.

"My dear Bunny!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what brought me back?"

I answered savagely that I neither knew nor cared.

"I had the very devil of a squeak for it," he went on. "I did the
hurdles over two or three garden-walls, but so did the flyer who was
on my tracks, and he drove me back into the straight and down to High
Street like any lamplighter. If he had only had the breath to sing out
it would have been all up with me then; as it was I pulled off my coat
the moment I was round the corner, and took a ticket for it at the
Empress Rooms."

"I suppose you had one for the dance that was going on," I growled.
Nor would it have been a coincidence for Raffles to have had a ticket
for that or any other entertainment of the London season.

"I never asked what the dance was," he returned. "I merely took the
opportunity of revising my toilet, and getting rid of that rather
distinctive overcoat, which I shall call for now. They're not too
particular at such stages of such proceedings, but I've no doubt I
should have seen someone I knew if I had gone right in. I might even
have had a turn, if only I had been less uneasy about you, Bunny."

"It was like you to come back to help me out," sai