“Impossible,” I said.  “It is out of the question.  It could not be thought of for a moment!”

“But why not?  I can see no difficulty in it?”

“If for no other reason because it would destroy any chance of my even getting on the scent.  I should be hampered at every turn.”

He heaved a heavy sigh.

“Blind! blind!” he said with despair in his voice.  “But I know that I shall meet him some day, and when I do——­”

His ferocity was the more terrible by reason of his affliction.

“Only wait, Mr. Kitwater,” I replied.  “Wait, and if I can help you, you shall have your treasure back again.  Will you then be satisfied?”

“Yes, I’ll be satisfied,” he answered, but with what struck me as almost reluctance.  “Yes, when I have my treasure back again I’ll be satisfied, and so will Codd.  In the meantime I’ll wait here in the dark, the dark in which the days and nights are the same.  Yes, I’ll wait and wait and wait.”

At that moment Miss Kitwater made her reappearance in the garden, and I rose to bid my clients farewell.

“Good-bye, Mr. Kitwater,” I said.  “I’ll write immediately I reach Paris, and let you know how I am getting on.”

“You are very kind,” Kitwater answered, and Codd nodded his head.

My hostess and I then set off down the drive to the righ road which we followed towards the village.  It was a perfect evening, and the sun was setting in the west in a mass of crimson and gold.  At first we talked of various commonplace subjects, but it was not very long before we came back, as I knew we should do, to the one absorbing topic.

“There is another thing I want to set right with you, Miss Kitwater,” I said, as we paused upon the bridge to which I have elsewhere referred.  “It is only a small matter.  Somehow, however, I feel that I must settle it, before I can proceed further in the affair with any satisfaction to myself.”

She looked at me in surprise.

“What is it?” she asked, “I thought we had settled everything.”

“So far as I can see that is the only matter that remains,” I answered.  “Yet it is sufficiently important to warrant my speaking to you about it.  What I want to know is, who I am serving?”

“I don’t think I understand,” she said, drawing lines with her umbrella upon the stone coping of the bridge as she spoke.

“And yet my meaning is clear,” I returned.  “What I want to be certain of is, whether I am serving you or your uncle?”

“I don’t think you are serving either of us,” she answered.  “You are helping us to right a great wrong.”

“Forgive me, but that is merely trifling with words.  I am going to be candid once more.  You are paying the money, I believe?”

In some confusion she informed me that this certainly was the case.

“Very well, then, I am certainly your servant,” I said.  “It is your interests I shall have to study.”