A Thunderbolt crashing through the roof of the hotel could not have startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement:

"Mr. Admaston."

He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him, while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round "O" of consternation and alarm.

George Admaston walked slowly into the room.

He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was great force and assertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the massive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat in his hand and a light coat over his arm.

"Hello, Ellerdine!" he said. "What are you doing here?"

The voice was deep and mellow, informed with weight and gravity, though pleasantly musical.

Lord Ellerdine looked hurriedly round the room. It might have been thought he was seeking an avenue of escape.

There was no one to help him, however, and he began to stutter horribly, while his eyes wore the look of a startled hare. "Here?" he gasped out. "Oh!" His eyes fell upon the breakfast-table, and an inspiration came to him. "Oh," he stuttered, "just had breakfast, don't you know."

"Early for you, isn't it?" said the big man, looking the wretched object before him full in the face.

"It is rather early," Lord Ellerdine replied. "Been travelling all——"

"All what?" Admaston asked quickly.

The other was in despair. He realised what he had done. He looked hopelessly round the room for Alice Attwill.

"Where's Lady Attwill gone?" he gasped.

Never relaxing his gaze for a single instant, and standing in the middle of the room without advancing further, Admaston continued: "Is she here?"

"Oh yes," replied Lord Ellerdine. "She's here. In fact, we're all here."

"Where's my wife?"

"In her room. Changing her gown. She's going for a walk."

"But I thought you went to Switzerland," Admaston went on.

"Did you really?" Ellerdine answered, with a ghastly assumption of ingratiating affability, though his hands were shaking, his mouth worked, and beads of perspiration were plainly rolling down his face.

Again came the grave, persistent voice: "Yes. That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"Oh! Yes—of course. But we all got on the wrong train."

"What?" Admaston said sharply, and a new note in his voice made the ex-diplomatist jump from the floor.

"We all got on the wrong train," he repeated.

"Who are we?"

"Collingwood and Peggy——"

"And what train did you and Lady Attwill get on?"

"The wrong one. Stupid mistake, wasn't it?"

"Very," Admaston answered.

Lord Ellerdine brightened a little. He thought he was carrying things very well now. "Yes," he said, "and so we all stayed the night at this hotel."

"Indeed!" Admaston replied.

The other put his shaking hands into his trousers pockets. "Oh yes! all," he said. "The proprieties were most carefully observed, Admaston."

"Now, that is very interesting," Admaston remarked; and if the other had been a member of the Lower House instead of the Upper, which he never entered, he would have known what that bland suavity of voice portended when the Cabinet Minister rose to speak.

Lord Ellerdine nodded. "Yes," he said. "But what the deuce are you doing here in Paris?"

"Oh! a whim."

"Didn't expect to find us here," the wretched fool continued—"did you?"

"There's something on?" Admaston answered, going towards the window and talking as he went. "Racing or something, isn't there?"

"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said. "Auteuil. Going out?"

Lady Attwill appeared at the window. "Oh! Alice," Admaston said.

She smiled brightly, extending her little manicured hand, upon which diamonds and sapphires flashed and sparkled in the brilliant light of the sun. "How do you do, George?" she said. "Who ever expected to see you here?"

"I don't run over often," Admaston answered, just taking her hand and no more. "But I thought you were at St. Moritz?"

"St. Moritz? Oh!—no. We changed our minds and came on to Paris."

"Then you didn't get on the wrong train?" Admaston said with grim politeness.

The wretched Ellerdine, who had retreated to the breakfast-table and sank down upon a chair, heard this, and was about to lay his head in the bacon dish with alarm, when Lady Attwill's next words did a little to reassure him.

"Oh yes," she said easily, going into the centre of the room; "we all got on the wrong train, but we changed our minds when we discovered our mistake."

"Good thing you did it before it was too late."

"Did what?" she asked in a flat voice.

"Why, changed your minds before you could change on to the right train."

"Wasn't it!" she replied. "And, by the way, I saw an old friend of yours on the train, George."

"And who was that?" Admaston asked.

"Sir Peter Stoke," she answered.

"Really! But he must have been on the right train. He was going to the Conference at Geneva."

"Oh!" she replied, "I met him at Boulogne."

There was a pause, and when he spoke again Admaston's voice grew colder and colder with every sentence.

"Strange," he said, nodding his head with an appearance of thoughtfulness. "He wrote to me from Amiens, where he has been staying for the past week, that he was joining the train there; and Amiens is the first stop on the Swiss express, isn't it?"

Lady Attwill almost whispered her assent.

"And the Paris express doesn't stop at Amiens?"

It suddenly occurred to Lord Ellerdine that he was being left out of the conversation.

"No," he said brightly.

Admaston turned round to him.

"Funny that, being already at Amiens, where the Swiss express does stop, he should have gone to Boulogne to catch it!"

Even the diplomatist, who had imagined that things were going better, began to realise the game was almost up.

"Yes, damned funny of him, wasn't it?" he said feebly.

For a few moments there was an absolute silence in the room. Outside, the roar of the morning traffic, the tooting of motor horns, and all the gay welter of things which marks a Parisian morning in fine weather, only accentuated the silence in the richly furnished salon.

Admaston turned and walked twice up and down the room. Lord Ellerdine was still sitting, guilty and miserable of aspect, in his chair at the breakfast table. Lady Attwill stood quite still where she was, near the window. They were both waiting to hear what should come next. Suddenly Admaston spoke.

"You found Paris very full?" he said in his icy voice.

"Very," Alice Attwill replied; "so we were lucky to get in here."

"Here?" the big man asked.

"Yes; we all stayed the night at this hotel."

"You used to have a very fine old parrot," Admaston said.

There was spirit in the woman. She gave a little toss of her head. "Er—I have her still," she replied.

"Not stuffed, I hope," he said.

"No, indeed. Alive and kicking."

There was a rattle of a handle, and the door of Collingwood's room opened and he came into the room.

He gave one slight start, no more, and his manner immediately became easy and natural. "Hallo!" he said. "Admaston!"

The big man regarded him gravely, showing no emotion whatever.

"Well, Collingwood," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I thought I would just run over and see——" Then he stopped speaking.

"How did you know that we were here?" Collingwood said.

"From a friend," Admaston answered.

The fool had to have his say. "That's very funny, Admaston," he said. "We didn't know ourselves."

"You surprise me. Didn't you know you were going to St. Moritz?"

"Of course we didn't know," Lady Attwill said quickly.

"Then how on earth could your friend know?" Lord Ellerdine asked.

There was a complete pause. Nobody said a word, but Admaston was the centre and focus of the place. All eyes went to him, and then back and round to each other's. He stood there, however, calm and imperturbable, radiating, as it were, not only quiet strength and absolute determination, but also sending out rays of fear, of uneasiness and disturbance.

Lord Ellerdine broke the silence with his plaintive bleat, repeating his former sentence: "Then how on earth could your friend know?"

"That's what I want to know," said Admaston. "But why on earth are you all up so early?"

Collingwood's face had been growing sharp and hostile, his nostrils twitched a little; he seemed now to be definitely on the defensive, ready for the attack. What he said was this: "Mrs. Admaston wanted to go out early to see the people en route to Auteuil."

Admaston raised one firm, shapely hand and brought it down upon the back of the other with a slow movement that ended in a little "click" of noise. "Mrs.?" he said. "Why Mrs. Admaston? Why are you so ceremonious, Colling? Why not Peggy?"

Collingwood looked dangerous, sulky and dangerous.

"Don't know," he said shortly. "I thought perhaps you were offended."

"Offended?" the relentless voice continued—so cold, relentless, and full of purpose that it chilled them all as it echoed out into the room. "Is there any reason why I should be offended?"

"Certainly not," said Lord Ellerdine in a staccato bleat.

"Good gracious! What an idea!" Alice Attwill chimed in.

Admaston turned to the ex-diplomatist. "Ellerdine," he said, "you ought not to sit up so late. You look very shaky this morning, and your voice has a peculiarly uncertain sound."

"Do I look shaky, old man? That damned journey——"

"To Paris," Admaston said quickly.

"Yes, yes, to Paris."

Admaston went up to him, gazing down at him with calm, reflective eyes as a mastiff regards some terrified small dog. "Late suppers don't agree with you," he said.

"With me?" asked the fool, perplexed.

"With Dicky? Late suppers?" Lady Attwill interrupted.

There was again a momentary pause.

The thing was closing in. The conspirators knew well enough that they were being played with, with the cold ferocity of a cat with a mouse. They were brave still. They preserved their pitiful pretences, but to the heart of each of them a little icicle had come.

"It was after midnight before he had finished his supper?" Admaston said.

"When?" Ellerdine inquired.

"Last night," Admaston rapped out.

"Dicky?" Lady Attwill said. "Why, he didn't have any supper last night."

"Not a bally mouthful," said Lord Ellerdine, shaking his head mournfully.

"Collingwood told me," Admaston remarked, "that you had just finished supper, well after midnight."

"Well, that was a whopper," said Lady Attwill.

"He didn't know," Ellerdine spluttered in.

"Oh! I thought not," Admaston said. "But you all stayed here last night."

At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance, had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its air of summer, which will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches, had not yet arrived.

The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice.

Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous, bleat of the diplomatist.

"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together.

"But no supper?"

"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice....

The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered.

He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he said in excellent Scotch-English.

A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping into the room.

His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased.

"I telephoned to Chalons, my lord," he said.

Lord Ellerdine jumped up as if he had suddenly sat down upon a pin.

"What?" he said.

"The railway people are sure they put your dispatch-box on the 2.43 with you and Lady Attwill."

Lord Ellerdine's face became the colour of brick. If his mouth had been larger it would have foamed at the corners. "Get out!" he spluttered.

The little man started back a step, his arms shot out in amazement, his face a mere mask of one.

"My lord!" he said.

"Get out!"

The poor fellow realised that there was obviously something very wrong. It was a situation he could only deal with in one way, and that was by being thoroughly polite.

"Yes, my lord," he said, in a voice from which he vainly tried to eliminate the amazement he felt.

Admaston turned sharply to the peer.

"What, Ellerdine?" he said. "Has your dispatch-box got on the wrong train, too? What a chapter of accidents!"

Again there was a horrible silence in the place.

It was broken by a sudden, loud cry.

Peggy had entered from her room, and had seen them all standing there—like figures in a tableau in the big hall at Madame Tussaud's.

"George!" she cried.

At that moment there was a singular change of poise among the tense, strained people who were there.

Lady Attwill, radiant and beautiful, strolled up to the piano.

Admaston remained where he was. Collingwood bent forward, almost in the attitude of a man about to spring.

"Well, Peggy. Going out?" Admaston asked.

"I was," Peggy answered; and if ever guilty fear was manifested in a human voice, the people in that room heard it now. It must be remembered that to people who have been upon the brink of crime or misbehaviour—even though they may have escaped it—the suspicion, when they are confronted with it, has much the same effect upon their attitude as if the thing had already been done. The nerves of the innocent have often proclaimed them guilty to the most indulgent eyes.

"I was going out," Peggy faltered.

"Wait a moment," Admaston said.

Peggy almost drooped together.

She was like an early lily of the valley suddenly withered by a sharp, cold wind—and all gardeners will tell one how sudden and complete that withering and collapse can be.

"Very well," the girl answered.

Admaston raised his right hand a little, while he was looking at her, grave and straight. Then his arm dropped to his side.

"Ellerdine tells me that you all got on the wrong train at Boulogne."

"Yes," Peggy answered. She looked anxiously, and indeed piteously, at the others, wondering what they had been saying, longing to be adequate, conscious of her own innocence, but dreadfully conscious of the appearance of her guilt.

Admaston—and nothing escaped him—saw the way her look flickered round the salon.

"You did?" he said in a voice of doom.

She did the fatal thing; she answered "Yes."

"Ellerdine also says," Admaston continued, "that he and Lady Attwill stayed here last night?"

The ex-diplomatist, who, though he was a perfect fool, was also a thorough gentleman, flushed up and spoke in a voice from which all the fear and bleating noise had gone.

"Of course we did, Admaston," he barked. "Why the devil—don't you believe us?"

But it was of no use; the resolute, ice-cold voice went on.

"And were you all at supper at midnight?"

Peggy broke in. "Why do you ask?" she said—and if ever there was pain and yearning in a human voice it was in hers at that moment.

"Because Collingwood told me that you were," Admaston answered, "and Ellerdine says he didn't have any supper. Lady Attwill corroborates Ellerdine's statement."

"Then why ask me? Don't you believe Colling?" Peggy said with a wail of despair.

"No, I don't," Admaston said shortly.

Collingwood drummed upon the carpet with his left foot.

"Admaston!" he said.

Admaston turned round to him, and his face became, for the first time, suffused with blood.

The quiet grey eyes blazed with anger; the big, capable face was transformed into a single accusation. The voice, at last, was directly accusing. It was wonderful in its pain, its suppressed horror, its certain purpose.

"I don't believe a single word I have heard since I have come into this room," he said.

Lord Ellerdine took a step towards the Minister. "By God! Admaston," he said.

Lady Attwill ran up to Lord Ellerdine and caught him by the arm.

"Dicky, keep quiet," she said in a frightened but very decisive voice.

"You have lied—you lied to me on the telephone last night."

Collingwood glared at him.

"Telephone!" Lord Ellerdine said, also turning to Collingwood. "Did Admaston speak to you last night—on the telephone?"

"Yes," Collingwood answered.

The diplomatist was genuinely distressed. "My dear fellow," he said, "why didn't you tell us?"

"Would that have saved you from saying that you all got on to the wrong train? Collingwood lied to me. You have lied to me. Lady Attwill—well—I beg your pardon...."

Collingwood took two steps towards Peggy.

"Why should you come catechising us?" he said to Admaston, and then he stepped up to him.

The two men stood in front of each other. Admaston, with a white fire of enragement in his face, still preserved his absolute calm of poise. His hands were clasped behind his back, his whole forceful personality seemed whetted for the aggression of the other.

Collingwood, on the other hand, was panther-like and alert. He almost crouched to spring at the other. He was a little younger, infinitely more dÉbonnaire—probably not really so physically powerful, but at least lithe, brave, and ready for anything.

The two men stood there for a moment, when Peggy ran between them. "Oh! don't!" she cried, spreading out her arms—in front of Collingwood. She seemed to fear her husband's heavy and certain onslaught.

She protected Collingwood, not George Admaston. Doubtless her action showed her knowledge of the stronger man, her wish to protect the weaker from his attack. But it was certainly most unfortunate.

"Go!" she cried. "Please go!" And then, turning rapidly to Lord Ellerdine, "Dicky, take Alice away."

Lord Ellerdine was trembling exceedingly. He was not trembling from any physical fear. He would have joined in the row with perfect happiness. It would have suited him very well. He knew that he had cut a sorry figure on this occasion—and he was not accustomed to cutting sorry figures. He was not a clever man; nobody knew it better than himself. But he had always considered himself to be an honourable one.

Lady Attwill seemed perfectly composed. Her face did not alter in expression at all, but she caught hold of her friend by the arm and led him out of the room.

The last thing that was heard as the two departed was the plaintive voice of the ex-diplomatist: "I knew it—I knew it."

Admaston waited until the door was closed, and then he turned to Collingwood. "Why don't you go?" he said.

"What are you going to do?" Collingwood asked, facing him.

The two men were white with passion. "What the devil has that got to do with you?" Admaston said.

"A great deal. If you loved your wife as I love her you would understand what it has to do with me."

"I loved her—and trusted her implicitly," Admaston answered, and even in his passion his wife could detect a note of sorrow.

"Your presence here looks like it," Collingwood said quickly. "Why, how did you know she was here unless you had her watched? Loved and trusted her! Good God! man, you never knew she existed until another man wanted her!"

"You admit that you wanted her!" Admaston snarled out.

"Yes," the other answered, standing well up; "and much good may the admission do you. I wanted her, and I fought with all the weapons I dared employ, and I have failed. What fight have you made for her? It was her own purity that kept her sweet. It was that purity that I wanted, but I have lost her." He made a passionate gesture with his hands which showed how deeply he was moved—a gesture quite unlike the ordinary English habit.

"If you have any instincts of a gentleman, you have won," Admaston answered.

"What do you mean?"

Peggy, who stood there trembling, gave a wail of despair.

"George, you cannot mean——"

Admaston took no notice of her.

"Your methods have not been over nice," he said with biting scorn: "to betray your friend—to seduce his wife."

"That's a lie! I don't defend myself—but don't you dare to say a word against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved me. But she doesn't; she loves you."

"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her."

Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for God's sake!"

Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You mean to cast her off?" he said—"to break her spirit? No—no—you dare not do it. You don't know what you are saying—you have no right...."

"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered.

Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance further.

"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George, to forfeit your love!"

"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to do—everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you."

Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a light of horror in her eyes.

"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report, and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt."

"My guilt! It is not true, George—I swear to you it is not true. I don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first—you knew that—I was honest, I told you all—but now...."

"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation, "don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings you'll only drive her to me?"

"Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"

"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see—and you don't seem very anxious to go through with it."

Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort, and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room.

Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to send me away?" she said.

Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My God! Peggy, you lied to me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie—a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy, Peggy, what have I done to you?"

"George, I did lie," she wailed—"yes, I did; but only that, only that! I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!"

"My wife! No—no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether that's a lie or not?"

"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me."

Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly.

"You have broken me," the man said—"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I worshipped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you, by doing big things—for you. And now it is all turned to desecration—to be the mock of the crowd!"

"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am still your wife. I am still——"

He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a hollow, empty voice.

"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did."

"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?"

"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it before. I love you, George!"

"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together alone when I telephoned."

He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked—"was he with you when I telephoned at one o'clock?"

"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey. "Yes—but...."

"Alone together from ten o'clock?..."

"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...."

"Alone together from the time I telephoned?"

"No, no, George!—not after that; I swear it!"

"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there was a note of absolute finality in his voice.

She saw that he had made up his mind—that she was doomed.

"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were alone with him. My God! Alone with him!"

In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was empty.

Peggy was left alone.