came back at the luncheon hour.

But one o'clock came, and two, and two-thirty, but not a sign of
Henriette, nor a word in explanation of her absence.

Could she have fallen a victim to the machinations of Lord Blackadder?
Was the boy captured and she detained while he was spirited away?

CHAPTER XXX.

It was impossible to disassociate Lord Blackadder from Lady
Henriette's mysterious disappearance, and yet we could hardly believe
that he could have so quickly accomplished his purpose. We doubted the
more when the man turned up in person at the Atlas Hotel and had the
effrontery to ask for her.

Basil went out to him in the outer hall, and, as I listened from
within, I immediately heard high words. It was like a spark applied to
tinder; a fierce quarrel blazed up instantly between them.

"How dare you show yourself here?" began Basil Annesley.

"Who are you to prevent me? I come to demand the restoration of that
which belongs to me. Take my message to those two ladies and say I
will have my boy," replied my lord.

"Do not try to impose on me, Lord Blackadder. It is the most impudent
pretence; you know perfectly well he is not here."

"I will not bandy words with you. Go in, you men, both of you, Tiler
and Falfani, and seize the child. Force your way in, push that
blackguard aside!" he roared in a perfect paroxysm of passion.

I could not possibly hold aloof, but called for help from the hotel
people, and, with them at my back, rushed out to add my protest
against this intemperate conduct.

A free fight had already begun. The three assailants, Ralph Blackadder
behind egging them on, had thrown themselves upon Basil, who stood
sturdily at bay with his back to the wall, daring them to come on, and
prepared to strike out at the first man who touched him.

"At him! Give it him! Throw him out!" cried Ralph passionately. But
even as he spoke his voice weakened, he halted abruptly; his hands
went up into the air, his body swayed to and fro, his strength left
him completely, and he fell to the ground in sudden and complete
collapse. When they picked him up, there was froth mixed with blood
upon his lips, he breathed once or twice heavily, stertorously, and
then with one long-drawn gasp died in the arms of his two men.

It was an apoplectic seizure, the doctors told us later, brought on by
excessive nervous irritation of the brain.

Here was a sudden and unexpected _denouement_, a terribly dramatic end
to