‘No,’ said Ravengar; ’I believe she would have done.  It was Tudor who drew a revolver and fired.  Had I had my own—­But I had laid it on a table, like a fool, and it disappeared.’

‘Is not this it?’ asked Hugo, producing Camilla’s weapon.

Ravengar nodded, amazed.

‘I thought so,’ Hugo said, and returned it to his pocket.  ’Were you wounded?’

’It was nothing.  A scratch on the wrist.  See!  But I left.  She—­she ordered me to.  And I saw I had no chance.  I came out by the principal door on the balcony while you were struggling with the servants’ door.’

‘Wait a moment,’ Hugo put in.  ‘Tudor knew you were hiding in the flat?’

‘Not much!’ exclaimed Ravengar.  ’I dropped on him like something out of the sky.  It cost me some trouble to get in.  I had a silly old housekeeper to dispose of.’

Hugo’s heart fell.

‘Great heavens!’ he sighed.

‘Why?  What’s the matter?’

’Nothing.  But tell me what you wanted to get into the flat for at all.  What is there between you and Tudor?’

‘Man! he’s taken Camilla from me!’ The accents of rage and despair were in Ravengar’s voice as he uttered these words.  ’He’s taken her from me!  She was my typewriter, you know.  I fell in love with her.  We were engaged!’

Hugo was startled for a moment; then he smiled bitterly and incredulously.  It seemed too monstrous and absurd that Camilla should have betrothed herself to this forbidding, ugly, ageing, and terrible man.

’You were engaged?  Never!  Perhaps you aren’t aware that she was engaged to Tudor?’

‘I tell you we were engaged.’

‘She accepted you?’

‘Why not?  I meant well by the girl.’

‘And then she disappeared?’

Hugo spoke with a certain cynicism.

‘How do you know?’ Ravengar demanded angrily.

‘I only guess.’

’Well, she did.  I can’t imagine why.  I meant well by her.  And the next thing is, I find her working in your shop, and in the arms of that scoundrel, Tudor.’  He hesitated, and then, as he proceeded, his tones softened to an appeal.  ’Owen, why were you watching last night?  I must know.  It’s an affair of life or death to me.’

Hugo did not believe most of Ravengar’s story, and he perceived the difficulty of his own position and the necessity for caution.

’I was watching because Miss Payne thought herself in some mysterious danger,’ he said.

’She came to me, as you have done, to ask my help.  And I won’t hide from you that it was she herself who informed me definitely that Tudor had invited her to marry him, and that she had consented.’

‘She shall not marry him!’ cried Ravengar, exasperated.

‘You are right,’ said Hugo.  ’She shall not.  I have yet to be convinced even that he meant to marry her.’

’The rascal!  He and I had business relations for several years before I discovered who he was.  Of course, you know?’