Nina saw him first; for she was facing that way. Most women would have screamed; she only became rigid. It was the situation in the Umballa bungalow over again—save that there was no pistol at hand, and Andrews knew now that the cobra was made of bronze.

Nina became rigid; Gerald sensed the unexpected. He looked over his shoulder and caught the glare of Kneedrock's eyes piercing the gloomy half-light.

They weren't sane eyes. He saw that at once. And a creepy shiver ran along his spine.

Nina's rigidity gave way to trembling, and all in the brief space of two seconds at the most—two seconds that were as taut as a fiddle-string.

Then the staghound sprang up, snarling, his fangs bared, and the hair along his back bristling. But he didn't spring. He pressed close against Nina's legs and cowered as though he had seen a ghost.

And then Kneedrock laughed. It was the very last thing that they expected, and the strain tightened to the point of snapping.

Because of everything—the whole wretched ensemble—the laugh seemed wilder, madder, weirder, possibly, than it was. It broke off in a sort of choking gurgle, and in a flash the laugher had wheeled about and was swallowed up in the murk of the passage.

This only, probably, could have aroused Nina to action. Swiftly as light itself she sped after him with an imploring cry of:

"Hal! Hal!"

Andrews, too, pulled himself together—shook himself free, as it were, of the dread, deathlike inertia that had held him passive and followed to the room door. And there Nina's voice came back to him from the lighted entrance-hall.

"You mustn't go! You must not! I want to see you. I want to make it all clear."

"It's clear enough as it is," he heard Kneedrock say. "Infernally clear, and—funny. You'd try to take the fun out of it. I know what you'd do. I always know what you'd do. You've never fooled me yet. That's because I never let you shut my eyes with your kisses—because I'm strong enough to keep you out of my arms."

There was silence for the briefest moment, and it was Kneedrock's voice that resumed: "Keep your hands off me. Good Lord, if there's one thing I fear it's your velvet paws! I've seen the sharp claws too often. For God's sake, Nina, keep them off, I say!"

"You'll come back?" she pleaded.

"I'll come back if you won't touch me."

"But your mackintosh is dripping, and your hat. Give them to me."

Andrews heard their steps approaching and withdrew from the doorway. He wished to avoid the madman, yet feared to leave Nina alone with him.

Then he noticed that Tara was still in the room—on guard, as it were—and seeing a connecting door ajar, he slipped through it, closing it after him.

The staghound snarled again as Nibbetts returned; but at a word from Nina he retreated and lay down, stretched at full length, his watchful eyes still fixed, however, on the viscount, who took a stand before the fireplace, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his morning coat, and his gaze on the floor.

Nina chose the end of a couch, and faced him over its piled pillows, on which, half-reclining, she rested her arms. To her own amazement, now that she was with him alone, all her fear had gone. Her poise and address were perfect.

Yet the change that had been wrought in him since the Monday she parted from him at Bellingdown struck her to the heart.

He must have lost twenty pounds in weight. His clothes, then so well-fitting, hung on his almost gaunt frame. His cheeks were hollow, and his eyes gleamed with that odd, lurid, uncanny light from deepening sockets.

"If I had known you came to Bath I should surely have seen you," she said.

"They told me you saw no one," he returned, "and yet you had your lover there at that moment."

"You know I have no lover—that I never have had."

"Why quibble over terms?" he asked. "I saw you in his arms in India. I saw you in his arms to-day. That's enough for me."

"He did me a great service," she tried to explain. "I didn't even know he was in Bath. It was my surgeon who brought him. He gave the skin that restored my poor burned face."

Her visitor chuckled cynically.

"You hadn't any poor burned face at Umballa," he sneered. "What had he sacrificed there?"

"His happiness, his faith in women, for my idle amusement."

"One of a thousand," he muttered. "You were never so considerate of the rest."

"I'm not altogether without heart."

"You amaze me."

"It's you who are heartless. You could save us both."

He looked at her then for the first time since they had come in. "Save us both?" he queried. "From what, pray?"

"From wretchedness. I've never been loved as I want to be. And you—you won't let me—"

"Good God!" he caught her up suddenly. "I didn't come here for that! Keep your tongue off me, Nina, as well as your hands, or—I'll cut it!"

She stretched herself farther across the pillows. "Make everything right," she pleaded earnestly, ignoring his rebuke. "Marry me over again—acknowledge me—be my husband in fact—as you've always been legally—just for a year."

Her voice was low, but thrilling in its eagerness of appeal. And in the dining-room, with ear close to the door, guarding her against a sudden outbreak from her unbalanced companion, Andrews heard all—every uttered word—and understood.

He had imagined it from her words the night before. But now, unwittingly, she had made it plain. What Kneedrock had told Carleigh was true.

Nina was his wife—the wife of his youth—and her marriage with Colonel Darling had been bigamy, committed in ignorance of the truth.

Lord Kneedrock stood motionless and silent. Again his eyes—those eyes so strangely changed—were bent upon the rug at his feet.

And the woman went on: "Just for a year, Hal. That's all. And if I'm not a good wife—if I look aside even a hair's breadth—you may kill me, or I'll kill myself when you give the word."

Then the man before the fireplace seemed to rouse himself out of a dream. There was no question that her entreaty had held him. It had indeed touched the depths of him.

In his mentally dulled state, such a culmination as she begged for had seemed not only desirable, but possible.

But now, all at once, there had floated back a memory of another face and another voice—a face and a voice too recently seen and heard to be quite clouded and hushed by the present.

Figuratively he shook himself, drew his hands from his pockets, lifted his tawny head, and turned upon her his unfamiliar eyes.

"Very, very pretty," he sneered cruelly. "But it's too late. I've another love—all my own, too, and not tarnished and worn thin by general use. You're no wife of mine—remember that—you sacrificed all claim. Besides, you're—you're—"

The blood was pounding in his neck, and he paused to jerk at his collar in an effort to free his throat.

"You're not a woman," he went on scornfully. "You're only half woman. You're other half tigress. Oh, I know you. I've been reading up on your breed, and I've met a few in my time. Lately I've been looking over some at the Zoo. And when all's said and done, I prefer the incarnate to the reincarnate." He stepped back a pace and viewed her appraisingly.

As she half-sat, half-lay there on the cushioned couch, all her lithe length stretched in beautiful outline, there was indeed a suggestion of the grace of the cat tribe at rest, long, sinuous, lazy. And to Kneedrock's obsessed vision this became more than a suggestion, more than a similarity.

"By gad," he exclaimed, "I've seen my old girl in her cage just like that, only a thousand times more beautiful! And she's safe, too! That's the best of it. She only gets what's fed to her. Pity you weren't barred up while you were a cub.

"I go there just to see her eat. She has your table manners to a dot. It's very amusing to me to see her claws come out of their silken sheaths, and clutch and tear, and her teeth rend, while her lips seem to run blood.

"Beautiful exhibition, I can tell you. Wouldn't miss it for a bag of sovereigns. 'Ah,' I say, 'there's Nina over again!' Only Nina gets 'em alive, and goes for their hearts first. That's her special titbit. Man-eater, is Nina! Nothing else satisfies her."

Nina buried her face in her arms, and her body quivered. For a little she had almost fancied him unchanged. But there was no question now. He had railed at her before. But never like this. The idea seemed to carry him away. He went on, repeating himself, growing more impassioned with each outburst.

Finally he jerked out his watch and glanced at it hurriedly.

"Haven't a minute to spare. They feed her at three—three sharp now. Winter schedule's on, you know."

But Nina didn't move. Her body had ceased to quiver. She lay as one dead. Kneedrock's tirade, reasonless, rhymeless, with its seemingly endless iteration and reiteration of ideas, phrases, words; all combining to form one great outpouring volume of contemptuous, reproachful, mad rebuke, had stunned her—deafened her.

Andrews, listening, heard the abrupt break from harangue to expressed purpose, and noted that there was, from his companion, no response. It was not his desire to disturb Nina, nor to again show himself to Kneedrock.

From the dining-room he sought the servants' quarters, and directed the housemaid to go at once to the drawing-room with the caller's mackintosh and hat, lest by some quick mental switch the madman revert to the subject of his mania and forget his intention of departure.

As it happened, the girl met the viscount in the passage. He accepted his proffered apparel without so much as a word, brushed past her, hurried through the entrance-hall, and was gone—forgetting even to close the door.

It seemed that the impulse to visit the tiger-house, once awakened, was as irresistible as the tides of ocean.

Andrews, having heard the maid close the door, went at once to Mrs. Darling. She recognized his step, and looked up in pleased surprise.

"You here still? I am so glad."

"Did you think I could leave you with him—alone?" he asked.

"But your business?"

"My business can wait. You needed me."

She gave him her hand.

"I am sick to my very soul," she said miserably. "I have abased myself and been kicked in the face."

"But he is not responsible," he reminded her; "you know that. I can conceive of nothing more pitiable."

She straightened herself, sitting erect.

"I know it. For just a little I thought only of myself. Something must be done. But what? I feel so helpless."

"He'll probably be refused admission to the gardens," said Andrews.

"Then he's sure to make trouble," Nina declared. "There will be a scene and exposure. He may be hurt, too."

"Why not try the sphinx solicitor yourself? I'll go with you."

She sprang up at that.

"It's the only way," she agreed. "He must do something. I'll make him do something."

Five minutes later they were in a taxicab together, rolling through the rain to Fleet Street. Arrived at the Inner Temple, old Mr. Widdicombe received Nina with chilling politeness. She was painfully nervous and obviously distressed.

"I've come about Lord Kneedrock," she said, fingering her handkerchief. "Have you seen him recently?"

Mr. Widdicombe nodded. "I have, Mrs. Darling," he said.

"How recently?"

"Within the month."

"Did you observe anything singular in his manner? Did he appear—"

"His manner has always been more or less singular."

"Did he appear less rational than usual, I mean?" she persisted.

"He was quite rational. Quite so."

"Well, he isn't now," said Nina bluntly. "He's quite the reverse. It may be simply a nervous disorder—I sincerely trust so—but he appears to be mad."

Mr. Widdicombe rubbed together his lean hands.

"You sent me that message this morning," he reminded her. "His lordship was then in my office."

"Here—then?" Her surprise was manifest.

"In an inner room. The door was ajar, and I fancy he heard every word of your messenger's statement."

"Is that what you meant by 'within the month'?" She felt somehow that she had been trapped.

"This morning was within the month. I made a statement of fact, did I not?"

His skin was like yellow parchment, crisscrossed with incised lines. Those at the sides of his mouth moved outward, which was as near as Lord Kneedrock's solicitor ever came to a smile.

Nina sprang to her feet in a rage. "You are quite impossible, Mr. Widdicombe!" she flared. "There are none so blind as those that won't see. I came to you for assistance, and you treat the matter—the very grave matter—as though it were a joke."

"I treat all matters just as I find them, Mrs. Darling," was his calm retort.

"Viscount Kneedrock is mad," she affirmed, mincing the manifest fact no longer.

The solicitor bowed.

"If so, I deplore it," he said; "but he has had quite enough in his life to make him so."

Upon Nina the veiled allusion was not lost.

"That is neither here nor there," she rejoined sharply. "We are only losing time in discussion. He must be saved from himself, whatever the cost."

Again there appeared that makeshift for a smile.

"If you had only thought of that sooner, Mrs. Darling," he murmured.

"I did not come here for your recriminations. I came for your aid," was her reply. "Will you come to Regent's Park and use your influence?"

But Mr. Widdicombe shook his head with some emphasis.

"Certainly not. I have no influence to use. I am a solicitor—neither an alienist nor a wet-nurse." He bowed for the third time. "I have the honor to bid you a very good morning."

Nina, in a state between rage and despair, rejoined Gerald Andrews in the visitors' room.

"He is a beast!" she said with trembling voice. "An abominable old boor! There is but one thing left for us to do. We must go alone, and pray God we are not too late to avert trouble."

They made all the haste possible, assisted and abetted by a well-driven taxicab with a fairly good engine. But they were too late to avert trouble, nevertheless.

There had been a disturbance in the tiger-house, and Lord Kneedrock had been seriously, perhaps mortally, injured.