Kenyon spoke very quietly but with a conviction, and, indeed, a certain solemnity, which impressed his companion.

“No,” said Chayne, gently, “I shall not forget John Lattery.”  But his question was still unanswered, and by nature he was tenacious.  His eyes were still upon Kenyon’s face and he added:  “What then?”

“Only this,” said Kenyon.  “Gabriel Strood was my John Lattery,” and moving round the table he dropped his hand upon Chayne’s shoulder.  “You will ask me no more questions,” he said, with a smile.

“I beg your pardon,” said Chayne.

He had his answer.  He knew now that there was something to conceal, that there was a definite reason why Gabriel Strood disappeared.

“Good-night,” he said; and as he left the room he saw Kenyon sink down into his arm-chair.  There seemed something sad and very lonely in the attitude of the older man.  Once more Michel Revailloud’s warning rose up within his mind.

“When it is all over, and you go home, take care that there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room not empty.  Have some one to share your memories when life is nothing but memories.”

At every turn the simple philosophy of Michel Revailloud seemed to obtain an instance and a confirmation.  Was that to be his own fate too?  Just for a moment he was daunted.  He closed the door noiselessly, and going down the stairs let himself out into the street.  The night was clear above his head.  How was it above the Downs of Dorsetshire, he wondered.  He walked along the street very slowly.  Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood.  There was clearly a dark reason for the metamorphosis.  It remained for Chayne to discover that reason.  But he did not ponder any more upon that problem to-night.  He was merely thinking as he walked along the street that Michel Revailloud was a very wise man.

CHAPTER XVI

AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN

“Between gentlemen,” said Wallie Hine.  “Yes, between gentlemen.”

He was quoting from a letter which he held in his hand, as he sat at the breakfast table, and, in his agitation, he had quoted aloud.  Garratt Skinner looked up from his plate and said: 

“Can I help you, Wallie?”

Hine flushed red and stammered out:  “No, thank you.  I must run up to town this morning—­that’s all.”

“Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-cart after breakfast,” said Garratt Skinner, and he made no further reference to the journey.  But he glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with some perplexity at Walter Hine.  “You will be back this evening, I suppose?”

“Rather,” said Walter Hine, with a smile across the table at Sylvia; but his agitation got the better of his gallantry, and as she drove him into Weymouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for protection.  “I don’t want to go one little bit, Miss Sylvia.  But between gentlemen.  Yes, I mustn’t forget that.  Between gentlemen.”  He clung to the phrase, finding some comfort in its reiteration.