Almost as soon as Mr. Franklyn touched the knocker of the house in Medina Villas, the door was opened from within, and he found himself confronted by Miss Strong.

"Oh, Mr. Franklyn, is it you at last?" She saw that some one was standing at Mr. Franklyn's back. "Cyril!" she cried. Then, perceiving her mistake, drew back. "I beg your pardon, I thought it was Mr. Paxton."

The man in the rear advanced.

"Is Mr. Paxton here?" He turned to Mr. Franklyn. "Unless you want trouble, if he is here, you had better tell me."

Mr. Franklyn answered.

"Mr. Paxton is not here. If you like you may go in and look for yourself; but if you are a wise man you will take my assurance as sufficient."

Mr. Hollier looked at Mr. Franklyn, then at Miss Strong, then decided.

"Very well, sir. I don't wish to make myself more disagreeable than I can help. I'll take your word."

Directly he was in the hall and the door was closed Miss Strong caught Mr. Franklyn by the arm. He could feel that she was trembling, as she whispered, almost in his ear--

"Mr. Franklyn, what does that man want with Cyril?"

He drew her with him into the sitting-room. Conscious that he was about to play a principal part in a very delicate situation, he desired to take advantage of still another moment or two to enable him to collect his thoughts. Miss Wentworth, having relinquished her reading, was sitting up in her armchair, awaiting his arrival with an air of evident expectancy. He looked at Miss Strong. Her hand was pressed against her side; her head was thrown a little back; you could see the muscles working in her beautiful, rounded throat almost as plainly as you may see them working in the throat of a bird. For the moment Mr. Franklyn was inclined to wish that Cyril Paxton had never been his friend. He was not a man who was easily unnerved, but as he saw the something which was in the young girl's face, he found himself, for almost the first time in his life, at a loss for words.

Miss Strong had to put her question a second time.

"Mr. Franklyn, what does that man want with Cyril?"

When he did speak the lawyer found, somewhat to his surprise, that his throat seemed dry, and that his voice was husky.

"Strictly speaking, I cannot say that the man wants Cyril at all. What he does want is to know if I am in communication with him."

"Why should he want to know that?" While he was seeking words, Miss Strong followed with another question. "But, tell me, have you seen Cyril?"

"I have not. Though it seems he is in Brighton, or, rather, he was two hours ago."

"Two hours ago? Then where is he now?"

"That at present I cannot tell you. He left his hotel two hours ago, as was thought, to keep an appointment; it would almost seem as if he had been starting to keep the appointment which he had with you."

"Two hours ago? Yes. I was waiting for him then. But he never came. Why didn't he? You know why he didn't. Tell me!"

"The whole affair seems to be rather an odd one, though in all probability it amounts to nothing more than a case of cross-questions and crooked answers. What I have learnt is little enough. If you will sit down I will tell you all there is to tell."

Mr. Franklyn advanced a chair towards Miss Strong with studied carelessness. She spurned the proffered support with something more than contempt.

"I won't sit down. How can I sit down when you have something to tell me? I can always listen best when I am standing."

Putting his hands behind his back, Mr. Franklyn assumed what he possibly intended to be an air of parental authority.

"See here, Miss Strong. You can, if you choose, be as sensible a young woman as I should care to see. If you so choose now, well and good. But I tell you plainly that on your showing the slightest symptom of hysterics my lips will be closed, and you will not get another word out of me."

If by his attempting to play the part of heavy father he had supposed that Miss Strong would immediately be brought into a state of subjection, he had seldom made a greater error. So far from having cowed her, he seemed to have fired all the blood in her veins. She drew herself up until she had increased her stature by at least an inch, and she addressed the man of law in a strain in which he probably had never been addressed before.

"How dare you dictate how I am to receive any scraps of information which you may condescend to dole out to me! You forget yourself. Cyril is to be my husband; you pretend to be his friend. If it is anything but pretence, and you are a gentlemen, and a man of honour, you will see that it is your duty to withhold no tidings of my promised husband from his future wife. How I choose to receive those tidings is my affair, not yours."

Certainly the lady's slightly illogical indignation made her look supremely lovely. Mr. Franklyn recognised this fact with a sensation which was both novel and curious. Even in that moment of perturbation, he told himself that it would never be his fate to have such a beautiful creature breathing burning words for love of him. While he wondered what to answer, Miss Wentworth interposed, rising from her chair to do so.

"Daisy is quite right, Mr. Franklyn. Don't play the game which the cat plays with the mouse by making lumbering attempts to, what is called, break it gently. If you have bad news, tell it out like a man! You will find that the feminine is not necessarily far behind the masculine animal in fibre."

Mr. Franklyn looked from one young woman to the other, and felt himself ill-used. He had known them both for quite a tale of years; and yet he felt, somehow, as if he were becoming really acquainted with them for the first time now.

"You misjudge me, Miss Strong, and you, Miss Wentworth, too. The difficulty which I feel is how to tell you, as we lawyers say, without prejudice, exactly what there is to tell. As I said, the situation is such an odd one. I must begin by asking you a question. Has either of you heard of the affair of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds?"

"The affair of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds?"

Miss Strong repeated his words, passing her hand over her eyes, as if she did not understand. Miss Wentworth, however, made it quickly plain that she did.

"I have; and so of course has Daisy. What of it?"

"This. An addle-headed detective, named John Ireland, has got hold of a wild idea that Cyril knows something about it."

Miss Wentworth gave utterance to what sounded like a half-stifled exclamation.

"I guessed as much! What an extraordinary thing! I had been reading about it just before Mr. Paxton came in last night, and when he began talking in a mysterious way about his having made a quarter of a million at a single coup--precisely the amount at which the diamonds were valued--it set me thinking. I suppose I was a fool."

For Miss Wentworth's quickness in guessing his meaning Mr. Franklyn had been unprepared. If she, inspired solely by the evidence of her own intuitions, had suspected Mr. Paxton, what sort of a case might not Mr. Ireland have against him? But Miss Strong's sense of perception was, apparently, not so keen. She looked at her companions as a person might look who is groping for the key of a riddle.

"I daresay I am stupid. I did read something about some diamonds being stolen. But--what has that to do with Cyril?"

Mr. Franklyn glanced at Miss Wentworth as if he thought that she might answer. But she refrained. He had to speak.

"In all probability the whole affair is a blunder of Ireland's."

"Ireland? Who is Ireland?"

"John Ireland is a Scotland Yard detective, and, like all such gentry, quick to jump at erroneous conclusions."

They saw that Miss Strong made a little convulsive movement with her hands. She clenched her fists. She spoke in a low, clear, even tone of voice.

"I see. And does John Ireland think that Cyril Paxton stole the Datchet diamonds?"

"I fancy that he hardly goes as far as that. From what I was able to gather, he merely suspects him of being acquainted with their present whereabouts."

Although Miss Strong did not raise her voice, it rang with scorn.

"I see. He merely suspects him of that. What self-restraint he shows! And is that John Ireland on the doorstep?"

"That is a man named Hollier, whom John Ireland was good enough to commission to keep an eye on me."

"Why on you? Does he suspect you also?"

Mr. Franklyn shrugged his shoulders.

"He knows that I am Cyril's friend."

"And all Cyril's friends are to be watched and spied upon? I see. And is Cyril arrested? Is he in prison? Is that the meaning of his absence?"

"Not a bit of it. He seems, temporarily, to have disappeared."

"And when he reappears I suppose John Ireland will arrest him?"

"Candidly, Miss Strong, I fear he will."

"There is something else you fear. And which you fear too!"

Miss Strong swung round towards Miss Wentworth with an imperious gesture. Her rage, despite it being tinged with melodrama, was in its way sublime. The young lady's astonishing intensity so carried away her hearers that they probably omitted to notice that there was any connection between her words and manner and the words and manner of, say, the transpontine drama.

"You fear, both of you, that what John Ireland suspects is true. You feel that Cyril Paxton, the man I love, who would not suffer himself to come into contact with dishonour, whose shoestrings you are neither of you worthy to unloose--you fear that he may have soiled his hands with sordid crime. I see your fear branded on your faces--looking from your eyes. You cravens! You cowards! You unutterable things! To dare so to prejudge a man who, as yet, has had no opportunity to know even what it is with which you charge him!"

Suddenly Miss Strong devoted her particular attention to Miss Wentworth. She pointed her words with a force and a directness which ensured their striking home.

"As for you, now I know what it was you meant last night; what it was which in your heart you accused him of, but which your tongue did not dare to quite bring itself to utter. And you have pretended to be my friend, and yet you are so swift to seek to kill that which you know is dearer than life to the man whom I love and hold in honour. Since your friendship is plainly more dangerous than your enmity, in the future we'll be enemies, openly, avowedly, for never again I'll call you friend of mine!"

Miss Wentworth moved forward, exclaiming--

"Daisy!"

But Miss Strong moved back.

"Don't speak to me! Don't come near to me! If you touch me, woman though I am, and woman though you are, I will strike you!"

Since Miss Strong seemed to mean exactly what she said, Miss Wentworth, deeming, under certain given circumstances, discretion to be the better part of valour, held her peace. Miss Strong, having annihilated Miss Wentworth, one could but hope to her entire satisfaction, redirected her attention to the gentleman.

"And you pretended to be Cyril's friend! Heaven indeed preserve us from our friends, it is they who strike the bitterest blows! This only I will say to you. You have the courage of your opinions when there's no courage wanted, but were Cyril Paxton this moment to enter the room you would no more dare to hint to him what you have dared to hint to me, than you would dare to fly."

Then, recollecting herself, with exquisite sarcasm Miss Strong apologised for having confused her meaning.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Franklyn, a thousand times. I said exactly the contrary of what I wished to say. Of course, if Cyril did enter the room, there is only one thing which you would dare to do, dare to fly. I leave you alone together, in the complete assurance that I am leaving you to enjoy the perfect communion of two equal minds."

Miss Strong moved towards the door. Mr. Franklyn interposed.

"One moment, Miss Strong. Where are you going?"

"To look for Cyril. Do you object? I will try to induce him not to hurt you, when I find him."

"You understand that you will have to endure the ignominy of having the man outside following you wherever you may go."

"Ignominy, you call it! Why, the man may actually be to me as a protection from my friends."

"You use hard words. I enter into your feelings sufficiently to understand that, from your own point of view, they may not seem to be unjustified. But at the same time I am sufficiently your friend, and Cyril's friend, to decline to allow you, if I can help it, to throw dust in your own eyes. That Cyril has been guilty of actual theft, I do not for a moment believe. That he may have perpetrated some egregious blunder, I fear is possible. I know him probably as well as you do. I know John Ireland too, and I am persuaded that he would not bring a charge of this kind without having good grounds to go upon. Indeed, I may tell you plainly--slurring over the truth will do no good to any one--Cyril is known to have been in actual possession of one of the missing jewels."

"I don't believe it."

"Best assured you will do good neither to Cyril's cause nor to your own by a refusal to give credence to actual facts. It is only facts which a judge and jury can be induced to act upon. Satisfactorily explain them if you can, but do not suppose that you will be able to impress other people with the merits of your cause by declining to believe in their existence. I do entreat you to be advised by me before, by some rash, if well-meaning act, you do incalculable mischief to Cyril and yourself."

"Thank you, Mr. Franklyn, but one does not always wish to be advised even by one's legal adviser. Just now I should be obliged by your confining yourself to answering questions. Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me where I am most likely to find John Ireland, that immaculate policeman?"

"When I left him he was just going to Makell's Hotel to make inquiries as to Cyril's whereabouts upon his own account."

"Then I will go to Makell's Hotel to make inquiries of John Ireland upon my account."

"In that case you must excuse me if I come with you. I warn you again, that if you are not careful you may do Cyril more mischief than you have any notion of."

"I shall come too."

This was Miss Wentworth. Miss Strong bowed.

"If you will, you will. Evidently the man on the doorstep is not likely to serve me as an adequate protection against my friends."

Miss Strong put on her hat and mackintosh in what was probably one of the shortest times on record. Miss Wentworth generally dressed more quickly than her friend; on such an occasion she was not likely to be left behind. The curious procession of three passed through the door and down the steps in Indian file, Miss Strong first, Mr. Franklyn last.

At the bottom of the steps stood Mr. Hollier. The leader looked him up and down.

"Is your name Hollier?"

The man touched his hat.

"That's my name, miss."

"I am Daisy Strong, Mr. Cyril Paxton's promised wife." She seemed on a sudden to be fond of advertising the fact. "I am going to look for Mr. Paxton now. You may, if you choose, play the part of spy, and follow me; but let me tell you that if he comes to harm through you, or through any of your associates, there'll be trouble."

"I see, miss."

Mr. Hollier grinned, hurting, as it seemed, the lady's sense of dignity.

"I don't know what you see to smile at. A woman has given a man sufficient cause for tears before to-day. You may find, in your own case, that she will again."