“Ah, you have come! Well, I almost hoped you would be afraid. I really don’t want you.”

This reception would probably have annoyed Lord Daynesborough.

“Why should I be afraid?” I asked, mimicking Daynesborough’s voice as well as I could.

Meanwhile I quietly locked the door.

“Why, because of your wife. I know you tremble before her.”

I advanced to the sofa.

“I have no wife,” I said; “and, seeing what I do, I thank God for it.”

She leaped up with a scream, loud and shrill.

A door opposite me opened, and a girl rushing in, crying: