Francis Ledsam sat where the sunlight fell upon his strong, forceful face, shone, too, upon the table with its simple but pleasant appointments, upon the tankard of beer by his side, upon the plate of roast beef to which he was already doing ample justice.  He laughed with the easy confidence of a man awakened from some haunting nightmare, relieved to find his feet once more firm upon the ground.

“I have been a fool to take the whole matter so seriously, Andrew,” he declared.  “I expect to walk back to Clarges Street to-night, disillusioned.  The man will probably present me with a gold pencil-case, and the woman—­”

“Well, what about the woman?” Wilmore asked, after a brief pause.

“Oh, I don’t know!” Francis declared, a little impatiently.  “The woman is the mystery, of course.  Probably my brain was a little over-excited when I came out of Court, and what I imagined to be an epic was nothing more than a tissue of exaggerations from a disappointed wife.  I’m sure I’m doing the right thing to go there ....  What about a four-ball this afternoon, Andrew?”

The four-ball match was played and won in normal fashion.  The two men returned to town together afterwards, Wilmore to the club and Francis to his rooms in Clarges Street to prepare for dinner.  At a few minutes to eight he rang the bell of number 10 b, Hill Street, and found his host and hostess awaiting him in the small drawing-room into which he was ushered.  It seemed to him that the woman, still colourless, again marvellously gowned, greeted him coldly.  His host, however, was almost too effusive.  There was no other guest, but the prompt announcement of dinner dispelled what might have been a few moments of embarrassment after Oliver Hilditch’s almost too cordial greeting.  The woman laid her fingers upon her guest’s coat-sleeve.  The trio crossed the little hall almost in silence.

Dinner was served in a small white Georgian dining-room, with every appurtenance of almost Sybaritic luxury.  The only light in the room was thrown upon the table by two purple-shaded electric lamps, and the servants who waited seemed to pass backwards and forwards like shadows in some mysterious twilight—­even the faces of the three diners themselves were out of the little pool of light until they leaned forward.  The dinner was chosen with taste and restraint, the wines were not only costly but rare.  A watchful butler, attended now and then by a trim parlour-maid, superintended the service.  Only once, when she ordered a bowl of flowers removed from the table, did their mistress address either of them.  Conversation after the first few amenities speedily became almost a monologue.  One man talked whilst the others listened, and the man who talked was Oliver Hilditch.  He possessed the rare gift of imparting colour and actuality in a few phrases to the strange places of which he spoke, of bringing the very thrill of strange happenings into the shadowy room.  It seemed that there was scarcely a country of the world which he had not visited, a country, that is to say, where men congregate, for he admitted from the first that he was a city worshipper, that the empty places possessed no charm for him.