Endacott laughed cynically but not altogether unkindly when Claire had finished her carefully prepared little speech that night after dinner. Their coffee had been served as usual out of doors under the cedar tree and Claire had returned with her uncle to the study, still pleading the cause which the events of the afternoon had made to her almost vital. He went at once to the sideboard and helped himself to a whisky and soda.

“It is fortunate, Claire,” he said, “that I am a person of even temperament; fortunate for you, perhaps, that I appreciate your presence here and your companionship so much. I have listened to you, I think you will admit, with patience. I shall now be as frank with you as I was with your Aunt AngÈle last evening.”

He took a long gulp of his drink, uncovered a tobacco jar and filled his small pipe. Afterwards he exchanged his dinner coat for a dressing gown which had been placed on a chair in readiness, tied it round him and seated himself at the writing table. He dragged the steel-clamped coffer of manuscripts to his side and produced the key from his pocket. He did not at once open it, however. He swung around and faced Claire.

“You women,” he pronounced, “stir my anger with these violent partialities. God knows your Aunt AngÈle has nothing to love those Ballastons for. Yet she in her pleading was even worse than you. Father and son, they are both of the same mould; selfish, intolerant, proud, good to look at, if you will, but parasites in the great world of deeds and thoughts. I will grant them courage but I deny them principle. I ask myself in wonder why I find you pleading for them? Well, I know. They have the gifts women love, the gifts which make women miserable. Fools! Your Aunt AngÈle is a fool! You are a fool!”

“I don’t think we are anything of the sort, Uncle,” she retorted bravely. “I can’t even see that it is foolish to ask a perfectly reasonable thing for people whom you like. Sir Bertram may be everything that you say. I only know that I like him. I don’t like bad people as a rule, but I like him.”

“And what about the son?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing, his thin but bushy eyebrows coming together.

“I like him too,” she declared stubbornly. “I was very angry with him on the steamer coming over, but since then I think that I understand him better.”

“You are not fool enough to be in love with him?” he asked.

She stood for a moment without replying. The hand which was gripping the back of the chair against which she was leaning moved convulsively. Her eyes were a little misty, her tone, when she answered, almost indignant.

“That is a horrid question to ask, Uncle,” she declared. “You may be a very learned man, but you know nothing about girls—American girls, anyhow. We don’t fall in love. We leave that to the men. Of course I know that Gregory Ballaston is of the same type as his father and they naturally are not the type which would appeal to you, but I like him. I like to play tennis with him, I like to have him talk to me, I like his friends. He treats me charmingly. And I love dear Mr. Henry. I have never spent a more interesting hour than I spent with him this afternoon. He is delightful—a wonderful personality. To me it is a tragedy to think that they are going to lose their home. If the story of this treasure is true and you can help them to get the jewels, why don’t you? You don’t want the money. You said the other day that you had more than enough. They have one of the Images. The other one Gregory risked his life to obtain. You don’t want yours. Let them have both and tell them how to get the jewels.”

Endacott puffed at his pipe steadily. He had the appearance of seriously considering the matter.

“You talk well, child,” he admitted. “You remind me of your father. You talk sense too. That pleases me. You shall have the truth from me, at any rate. I believe in the treasure. I believe that in twenty-four hours from now I shall know exactly how to obtain it. When I know how, I will reconsider the whole matter impartially. I promise you that. It is practically what I promised your aunt.”

She made a little movement towards him, a gesture, an exclamation of gratitude. He waved her back.

“Let me warn you,” he continued, “my present inclinations are to devote the treasure which I may discover to building a university in Pekin for the benefit of young Englishmen and Americans who wish to study the inner history and the truth about the greatest nation in the world, and, if the treasure should realise sufficient money, to build others in Boston and London for the benefit of the young Chinese. Ask yourself now, would not the money be better spent in that way than in handing it over to this piratical, degenerate family, to gamble away on horses and women and every manner of extravagance; to breed another generation of dissolute Ballastons who would lead the same life, and another very likely after them? What do you think, Claire?”

The girl answered without hesitation.

“I would rather the Ballastons had the money.”

“You won’t argue the matter?”

“I can’t. I would rather the Ballastons had the money. A part of it, at any rate, belongs absolutely to them.”

“Although Wu Ling actually won back the statue Gregory took home with him?”

She hesitated this time, but only for a moment.

“You mustn’t be angry with me, Uncle, but I have always had it in my mind that Wu Ling is a Chinaman and that he dealt the cards.”

Endacott sat quite still for a moment, gazing at his niece. Then he did what was for him one of the rarest things in life: he began to laugh. He laughed until the tears stood in his eyes, until he was compelled to remove his spectacles and wipe them. When he had finished, he took another gulp of his whisky and soda.

“Claire,” he said, “you please me. You have done your cause no harm, at any rate. Now listen. Andrews and the servants know, but I forgot to tell you. I am leaving for London by the 7:40 train in the morning.”

“Going to London!” she exclaimed.

His face, now that the fit of mirth had passed, seemed unnaturally stern and strained.

“There is still one visit which I must pay to the British Museum,” he confided; “one sentence alone which troubles me. I know where to look for the key, however. I shall return by the five o’clock train. As I have promised you, I will then, so soon as I am sure of the treasure, make up my mind as to its disposition. You had better go to bed now. Let me repeat that you have done your cause no harm by our conversation this evening. On the contrary, you have probably done good, but I wish now to be alone. Good night!”

She came over and kissed him, thankful for that episode of humour, somehow or other aware of a vein of more complete humanity in him during the last hour. He accepted her salute perfunctorily, patted her hand and waved her towards the door. As soon as she had departed, he turned the key in the coffer.

For at least a couple of hours Endacott worked in peculiar fashion. Stretched out before him was the sheet of paper upon which he was writing, above it the manuscript, yellowed with age, which he was continually studying. On his left were the Chinese dictionary, a vellum-bound manuscript dictionary of phrases, having the appearance of great age, and a collection of notes mostly compiled at the British Museum and secured with a paper fastener. On the sheet in front of him were set out the letters of the Chinese alphabet. At times he slowly transposed these. One whole sentence had already taken to itself concrete shape. Then, in the midst of his labours, he suddenly paused. His pen remained stiff, his head was upraised. He listened. Outside it seemed to him that the breathless calm of a hot summer night had formed the background for a slight noise, the faint rattle of a pebble displaced; a footstep, it almost seemed. He listened again. The night, though light enough, was moonless, and he could only see a few yards through the window. He opened the left-hand drawer of his bureau, thrust his hand into its furthermost recesses, and drew out a small revolver. Then he rose stealthily to his feet and hesitated. He had not passed the greater part of his life in an undisciplined country without learning certain precautions. To stand in front of that window was to expose himself, a clearly defined mark for assault, if indeed there should be marauders about. He leaned over and turned out the electric light, crossed the room swiftly with the revolver in his hand, and passed through the window into the garden. He stood still, listening, with his back to the wall. There was an owl calling plaintively in the little grove of trees between the miniature park and the kitchen garden. Then silence—the faint barking of a dog a long way off—silence again, and at no time anything unusual to be seen. Nevertheless he lingered. Pebbles can scarcely become detached without human agency. His eyes tried to pierce the shadows. There was a dark shrub near the wire fence—or was it a shrub? He was suddenly convinced that it was the stooping figure of a man. He started forward, crossing the lawn with swift footsteps which gradually slackened. As he grew nearer he was disillusioned. The shrub took to itself shape. Its similitude to a man disappeared. He stood and looked around him. Behind was the gloomy outline of the house, with one light burning in a top window from the servants’ quarters. Of the village one or two roof tops alone were visible, but the lights had long since been extinguished. Around him was a dimly seen vista of trees and shrubs and flower beds, a perfume in the air—but silence. He walked slowly towards the house, the butt of his revolver still gripped firmly in his hand. There was nothing to be seen nor any sound to kindle anxiety, yet he was never devoid of that uncatalogued sense which bespeaks the close presence of something concealed, something inimical. He took to walking in circles. He was imagining always some one stalking him from the rear. He reached the study windows, however, without tangible sign of any intruder. He pushed them open and entered. The room was in darkness. He found his way to the switch and turned on the light. Instantly all his vague premonitions materialised. The papers upon his desk were in disorder, the curtain in front of the Soul had been dragged aside, although the Image still remained there, smiling down upon him. He switched on another light and looked round the room searchingly, his firmly held revolver following his eyes. The room was empty. He looked towards the window. Almost at that moment he heard the soft swinging-to and closing of the gate leading from the back avenue. The intruder had apparently taken alarm and departed.