is letters into his drawer, and locked them up with
a little exclamation of relief.

"I will come down with you," he said. "Mr. Ducaine, you will join us."

I would have excused myself, for indeed I was weary, and the thought of
a bath and rest at home was more attractive. But the Duke had a way of
expressing his wishes in a manner which it was scarcely possible to
mistake, and I gathered that he desired me to accept his invitation. We
all descended the stairs together.

CHAPTER XI

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

The long dining-room was almost filled with a troop of guests who had
arrived on the previous day. Most of the men were gathered round the
huge sideboard, on which was a formidable array of silver-covered
hot-water dishes. Places were laid along the flower-decked table for
thirty or forty. I stood apart for a few moments whilst the Duke was
greeting some of his guests. Ray, who was sitting alone, motioned me to
a place by him.

"Come and sit here, Ducaine," he said; "that is," he added, with a
sudden sarcastic gleam in his dark eyes, "unless you still have what the
novelists call an unconquerable antipathy to me. I don't want to rob
you of your appetite."

"I did not expect to see you down here again so soon, Colonel Ray," I
answered gravely. "I congratulate you upon your nerves."

Ray laughed softly to himself.

"You would have me go shuddering past the fatal spot, I suppose, with
shaking knees and averted head, eh? On the contrary, I have been down
on the sands for more than an hour this morning, and have returned with
an excellent appetite."

I looked at him curiously.

"I saw you returning," I said. "Your boots looked as though you had
been wading in the wet sand. You were not there without a purpose."

"I was not," he admitted. "I seldom do anything without a purpose."

For a moment he abandoned the subject. He proceeded calmly with his
breakfast, and addressed a few remarks to a man across the table, a man
with short cropped hair and beard, and a shooting dress of sombre black.

"You are quite right," he said, turning towards me suddenly. "I had a
purpose in going there. I thought that the gentleman whose untimely
fate has enlisted your sympathies might have dropped something which
would have been useful to me."

For the moment I forgot this man's kindness to me. I looked at him with
a shudder.

"If you are in earnest," I said, "I trust that you were unsuccessful."

I fancied that there was