continued coolly, "God only knows. For the moment
she calls herself Mrs. Smith-Lessing. She is a Franco-American, a
political adventuress of the worst type, living by her wits. She is
ugly enough to be Satan's mistress, and she's forty-five if she's a day,
yet she has but to hold up her finger, and men tumble the gifts of their
life into her lap, gold and honour, conscience and duty. At present I
think it highly probable that you are her next selected victim."

For several minutes Ray proceeded with his dinner. I did my best to
follow his example, but my appetite was gone. I could scarcely persuade
myself that the whole affair was not a dream--that the men who sat all
round us in little groups, the dark liveried servants passing noiselessly
backwards and forwards, were not figures in some shadowy nightmare, and
that I should not wake in a moment to find myself curled up in a railway
carriage on my way home. But there was no mistaking the visible
presence of Colonel Mostyn Ray. Strong, stalwart, he sat within a few
feet of me, calmly eating his dinner as though my agony were a thing of
little account. He, at least, was real.

"This woman," he continued, presently, "either is, or would like to be,
mixed up with the treachery that is somewhere close upon us. Sooner or
later she will approach you. You are warned."

"Yes," I repeated vaguely, "I am warned."

"I have finished," Colonel Ray remarked. "Go on with your dinner and
think. I will answer any question presently."

There were only two I put to him, and that was when my hansom had been
called and I was on the point of leaving.

"Is he--my father--alive now?" I asked.

"I have reason to believe," Ray answered, "that he may be dead."

"How is it," I asked, "that you are so well acquainted with these
things? Were you at any time my father's friend?"

"I was acquainted with him," Ray answered. "We were at one time in the
same regiment. My friendship was--with your mother."

The answer was illuming, but he never winced.

"Indirectly," I said, "I seem to have a good deal to thank you for. Why
do you say that you can never be my friend?"

"You are your father's son," he answered curtly.

"I am also my mother's son," I objected.

"For which reason," he said, "I have done what I could to give you a
start in life."

And with these words he dismissed me.

* * * * *

I received Ray's warning concerning Mrs. Smith-Lessing, the new