She is ugly enough to be Satan's mistress, and she's forty-five if she's a day, yet she has but to hold up her finger, and men tumble the gifts of their life into her lap, gold and honour, conscience and duty.

At present I think it highly probable that you are her next selected victim." For several minutes Ray proceeded with his dinner.

I did my best to follow his example, but my appetite was gone.

I could scarcely persuade myself that the whole affair was not a dream--that the men who sat all round us in little groups, the dark liveried servants passing noiselessly backwards and forwards, were not figures in some shadowy nightmare, and that I should not wake in a moment to find myself curled up in a railway carriage on my way home.

But there was no mistaking the visible presence of Colonel Mostyn Ray.