The Duchess of Dawn was dining a number of notabilities at the Savoy, on her way to a command performance at the Gaiety; a fact of which the fashionable world was well aware, because the young duchess is a great lady in London as well as elsewhere, and all her doings are chronicled in advance. The fashionable world had promptly decided to dine there too, and telephoned in breathless haste for tables. It filled the restaurant at an unusually early hour, and a disappointed overflow displayed itself in the foyer.

The Duchess of Dawn is one of the most beautiful women in England. The eyes of the fashionable world were focussed on her and her guests, among whom were a minor European prince and a famous field-marshal who had not been on show in London for long, until there appeared from the crowded foyer, upon the arm of an old-young man of distinguished appearance and faultless tenue, a tall, slender girl, at whom, as she passed, every one turned to gaze, with undisguised admiration or envy, according to sex and temperament.

She was gowned to distraction, and by an artist in women\'s wear. Her beautiful bare arms and shoulders and bosom were free of superfluous ornament. Her pure, proud, sensitive features were faintly flushed,—as though, if that were conceivable, she was wearing evening dress for the first time, and found it trying,—but her curved crimson lips were slightly parted in a most bewitching smile, and, from under their drooping lashes, her radiant eyes looked a demure, amused, impersonal defiance at the frankly curious faces upturned toward her. The shaded lights made most enchanting lights and shadows among her hair, red-gold and heaped about her head in heavy coils, as she moved modestly through the thronged room toward a corner where, about a beautifully decorated table, four motionless waiters were standing guard over four empty chairs.

She sat down there, her back to the bulk of the company, and her escort took the seat opposite. A portly, prosperous-looking, elderly man, with something a little suspicious about one of his eyes, and a squat, queerly-shaped old fellow in semi-clerical garb and wearing smoked glasses, completed the party. Their waiters began to hover about them, and the fashionable world went on with its dinner.

"Who was that lovely girl?" the Duchess of Dawn demanded of her vis-à-vis, the veteran soldier, and he, reputed among women to have no heart at all, recalled himself with an evident start from the reverie into which he had fallen. He almost blushed, indeed, under the duchess\'s blandly discerning smile.

"I don\'t know, I\'m sure, duchess," he returned, smiling also, in spite of himself, and beckoned to a servant behind him, whom he despatched on some errand.

"She\'s registered as Miss Harris, your lordship," the man announced in an undertone when he returned.

"Miss Harris!" echoed the prince, who was also a soldier. He had overheard. And, as he in turn caught the duchess\'s eyes, he lay back laughing, a little ruefully. But the man opposite him, the master of armies, was not amused.

"I\'d like to know who and what those three fellows with Miss Harris may be," said he.

At their table in the corner, they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. The three men were toasting Sallie and each other with equal good-will. And even Sallie had dismissed from her mind the last of her lingering doubts as to the reality and endurance of her part in that most amazing new life, had put the past with all its horrors resolutely behind her, was too much interested in the entertaining present to trouble about the future at the moment.

Captain Dove had seemingly forgotten, for the time being at any rate, his grievance against Slyne, and was in his most lamb-like mood. While Slyne did not even demur against the quantities of expensive wine the old man consumed during dinner. Mr. Jobling, too, was displaying symptoms of convivial hilarity when they at length left the restaurant. But most of the other tables were empty by then.

Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, arm in arm, affectionately maintained each other as far as their sitting-room, while Slyne accompanied Sallie to her own door. He had been making himself most agreeable to her, and had pointed out a number of the notorieties and one or two of the celebrities present; although it had somewhat startled her to be told that she would very soon be on familiar terms with them all.

"Aren\'t you glad now that you agreed to the bargain we made on the Olive Branch—and in Monte Carlo?" he asked by the way. He was smiling gaily.

She smiled back at him, and, "I\'m not sorry—so far, Jasper," she answered, looking deep into his eyes.

He nodded, as if quite satisfied, and turned away to escape that embarrassing scrutiny.

"We\'ll be starting in half an hour or so," he informed her from a safe distance, and, "I\'ll be all ready," she called cheerfully after him.

A little before eleven he came in again and they all set out for the station to catch their train.

It was a cold, clear, frosty night, and the Strand was at its busiest as Sallie looked out at it from the taxi into which Slyne and Ambrizette had followed her at the hotel portico. Another, containing Captain Dove and their legal adviser, still on the most amicable terms, although Captain Dove as a rule could not stand anyone afflicted with hiccough, crawled close behind them through the turmoil until, at the Gaiety corner, a policeman delayed it to let the cross-traffic through.

A crowd had gathered there to gaze at the royalties who would presently be coming out of the theatre. Slyne drew Sallie back from the open window at sight of two men, one of whom seemed all shirt-front, looking down at the congested street from the empty steps of the principal entrance.

"That ass Ingoldsby!" he explained to Sallie, and was evidently a good deal disturbed. "And—Dubois, as well," he added. "I thought I had shaken him off in Paris. I\'m sure he saw me, too."

A little farther on he stopped the taxi and beckoned to one of those street-arabs who make a living about the kerb.

"Go to the gentleman with the beard, on the steps of the Gaiety," he instructed that very alert messenger, "and say to him that a friend wants a word with him here."

Sallie observed the suppressed grimace of surprise on the face of the individual who almost at once arrived in the wake of his ragged Mercury: and Slyne, having tossed the latter a shilling, held out his hand to M. Dubois.

"Charmed to see you in London, mon confrère," said he. "Have you yet discovered your man?"

"I am hard at his heels," the detective answered, his eyes searching Slyne\'s as if, Sallie thought, for some sign that that shaft had hit home.

But Slyne\'s expression was one of ingenuous simplicity. He bowed, as if with deep respect.

"I caught a glimpse of some one most amazingly like myself, one day on the Faubourg St. Honoré, as I was passing through Paris," he mentioned reflectively.

"Thanks," returned Dubois. "It was he, no doubt. And—he\'s in London now."

Slyne did not wince, even at that.

"He was dining at the Savoy to-night," said Dubois indifferently. "How does your own affair progress?"

"Assez bien," Slyne answered in an even voice. "I have followed my quarry home and am awaiting developments."

"You will be in London for a little, then?"

"For the next week or ten days, I expect," Slyne lied with perfect aplomb.

"We shall meet again, in that case," declared the detective, glancing at Sallie; and, "Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur," Slyne returned deferentially.

"To Grosvenor Square now—and hurry along," he directed the driver in a voice his enemy could not fail to hear. And the taxicab swung into Drury Lane, on its way west.

For a few minutes he sat silent, with bent head, biting at his moustache. Then he looked round at Sallie.

"That fellow takes me for another man," he told her querulously. "He\'s been dogging me ever since he first saw me at Monte Carlo. You\'ve no idea, Sallie, what a dangerous risk I had to run there—for your sake."

"You haven\'t told me much about—anything, Jasper," she reminded him. And he proceeded to describe in lurid detail the fate which would undoubtedly have befallen him had M. Dubois been able then to fasten on him responsibility for the misdeeds of ............