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clubhouses and disappeared in the great hall.

Chester was about to follow, but checked himself upon the threshold as
the question arose in his mind, What for?

To demand an explanation of their conduct toward him.

Well, he felt that he might demand it, but he knew that they would
preserve the same attitude as before, and treat him with contempt--treat
him as if he were some half-witted being who claimed acquaintance; and
how could he get people to believe in his strange story--how could he
advance his position with respect to Marion?

He calmed down as quickly as he had grown excited and began to feel that
to force a quarrel in the club to which these men belonged could have
but one ending, that of the police being called in and his being
ejected.

"And what then?" he asked himself. "Possibly the whole business would
be dragged into the police court, then into the daily papers, and if
Marion were ready to continue her intimacy with the man who had saved
her brother's life, would she not be hurt and annoyed with him for
forcing into publicity an affair which the conduct of all concerned
showed them to be eager to keep hushed up?"

Chester walked down St James's Street again, with the intention of
cooling his burning head in the quiet gloom of the Park; but he altered
his mind and turned off to his left, along Pall Mall, re-entered his
club and went up to the smoking-room, which proved to be a little more
full than before, but this did not trouble him now. He sat down and
took a cigar and began smoking, thinking, trying to argue out the reason
for the strange behaviour of these Clareboroughs. He could understand
that there had been a desperate quarrel, resulting in the use of the
revolver, and he was ready to grant that the elder brother's conduct
toward Marion had been the moving cause for that. But he felt convinced
that there was something more behind; else why all the secrecy?

Here they were, a wealthy family, evidently moving in good society, and
living in a magnificently-appointed mansion; but during all the days of
his enforced stay, with the exception of the old housekeeper, he had not
seen a single servant, and nothing to suggest that any were in the
place. That they kept domestics was plain enough, for he had since seen
the butler and footman. Then, too, there had been the coachman who
drove the carriage that night, though he, as an out-door servant, might
easily have been kept in ignorance of