scovered him in the room
there, and when he came out I promptly sat on him."

"But what did he want?"

"If one can judge anything from his present attitude, he came to study
the pattern of the carpet, Moira."

"Be serious, Jim, please."

"I couldn't if I tried," I said, rising to my feet. "It's too much like
hard work. But let's look at the captive, Diana."

This time the shot went home, and in a way I was glad. I had four years'
arrears to make up yet. It was not a very manly thing to do, I know--it
certainly wasn't at all gentlemanly--but it gave me a deuce of a lot of
satisfaction, and that's about all I can say in defence. She looked up
at me with both hurt and contempt in her eyes, but I was far too
engrossed in the business in hand to give her more than passing notice.
When I came to think it over in calmer moments I realised that, despite
all that had happened, the girl was just as much in love with me as ever
she had been.

The fellow was young, at the most he could not have been more than
twenty-four or five, and I saw instantly that he was the man I had
called the Roman sentry--the chap who had been spying on the house the
day Bryce had driven me home from the Heads. The life wasn't crushed out
of him by any means; even as I examined him he stirred a little and his
eyes opened. They were nice black eyes, the sort that brim over with
humor, yet way at the back of them I caught a glimpse of something else.
It was a queer mixture of anger and determination, and I saw just
sufficient of it to warn me to take no unnecessary risks. Save for that
first spasmodic movement he lay perfectly still, those black eyes of his
laughing up at me and challenging. Somehow they filled me with a curious
sense of unrest, a feeling as if everything that made life safe and
secure was slipping away from me. I did not speak a word, however, but
gave him back look for look, striving with my eyes to beat down the
challenge I read in his. They said as plainly as so many words, "I'm the
better man, and I'll beat you yet. Try and see if I don't."

"What are you doing here?" I demanded at length, seeing that one of us
must speak, and he seemed the less likely.

"If I told you I was a somnambulist you wouldn't believe me, would you?"
he replied.

"I wouldn't," I said tersely.

"I'm not, anyway," he continued, with those infernally self-possessed
eyes daring me ... daring me what?

"You've got to explain what you were doing in th