ich were
smouldering in a glow of incandescent heat. He turned and glanced over
his shoulder toward his companion.

Barebone was taking the locket from his waistcoat pocket and approaching
the table where the candles burnt low in their sockets.

"You never really supposed you were the man, did you?" asked Colville,
with a ready smile. He was brave, at all events, for he took the only
course left to him with a sublime assurance.

Barebone looked across the candles at the face which smiled, and smiled.

"That is what I thought," he answered, with a queer laugh.

"Do not jump to any hasty decisions," urged Colville instantly, as if
warned by the laugh.

"No! I want to sift the matter carefully to the bottom. It will be
interesting to learn who are the deceived and who the deceivers."

Barebone had had time to think out a course of action. His face seemed
to puzzle Colville, who was rarely at fault in such judgments of
character as came within his understanding. But he seemed for an instant
to be on the threshold of something beyond his understanding; and yet
he had lived, almost day and night, for some months with Barebone. Since
the beginning--that far-off beginning at Farlingford--their respective
positions had been quite clearly defined. Colville, the elder by nearly
twenty years, had always been the guide and mentor and friend--the
compulsory pilot he had gaily called himself. He had a vast experience
of the world. He had always moved in the best French society. All that
he knew, all the influence he could command, and the experience upon
which he could draw were unreservedly at Barebone's service. The
difference in years had only affected their friendship in so far as
it defined their respective positions and prohibited any thought of
rivalry. Colville had been the unquestioned leader, Barebone the ready
disciple.

And now in the twinkling of an eye the positions were reversed. Colville
stood watching Barebone's face with eyes rendered almost servile by a
great suspense. He waited breathless for the next words.

"This portrait," said Barebone, "of the Queen was placed in the locket
by you?"

Colville nodded with a laugh of conscious cleverness rewarded by
complete success. There was nothing in his companion's voice to suggest
suppressed anger. It was all right after all. "I had great difficulty in
finding just what I wanted," he added, modestly.

"What I remember--though the memory is necessarily vague--w