re the night, and neither by word, nor deed will
let a hint of your whereabouts or of what has passed between us this
evening get to the ears or the eyes of any one at Clavering Close? Come
now; that's a fair proposition, is it not?"

"I don't know; I can't think what's at the bottom of it. Good
Lord!"--with a sudden flash of suspicion "you don't mean that you
suspect that Lady Clavering, my stepmother--and just because I said she
was out on the Common last night? If that's your game---- Look here,
she's as pure as ice and as good as gold, my stepmother, and my dear old
dad loves her as she deserves to be loved. If you've hatched up some
crazy idea of connecting her with this affair simply because De Louvisan
was an Austrian and she's an Austrian, too----"

"Oho!" interjected Cleek. "So Lady Clavering is an Austrian, eh? I see!
I see!"

"No, you don't. And don't you hint one word against her! So if it's part
of your crawling spy business to get me to give my parole so that you
may sneak over to Clavering Close and play another of your sneaking
abduction tricks on her, just as you have played it on me----"

"Ease your mind upon that subject. I have no intention of going near
Clavering Close, nor yet of sending anybody there. Another thing: I
have not, thus far, unearthed even the ghost of a thing that could be
said to connect Lady Clavering with the crime. Do you want me to tell
you the truth? It is you against whom all suspicions point the
strongest; and I want you to go away to-night simply that I may know if
you have spoken the truth, or are an accomplished actor and a finished
liar!"

"What's that? Good Lord! how can my disappearing for a night prove or
disprove that?"

"Shall I tell you? Then listen. I meant at first to keep it to myself,
but----" His voice dropped off; there was a second of silence, then a
faint clicking sound, and a blob of light struck up full upon his face.
"Look here," he said suddenly, "do you know this man?"

Clavering looked up and saw in the circle of light a face he had never
seen in life before--a hard, cynical face with narrowed eyes and a
thin-lipped, cruel mouth.

"No," he said, "if that is what you look like. I never saw such a man
before."

"Nor this one?"

In the circle of light the features of the drawn face writhed curiously,
blent, softened, altered--made of themselves yet another mask. And young
Clavering, pulling himself together with a start, found himself looking