They were happy hours for both.  Madge was unconventional, and would have resented a hint that she was doing anything in the least improper.  She had left boarding school two years before, and since then she had rejoiced in her freedom, not finding life dull in the sleepy Thames-side suburb of London.  As for Jack, his conscience gave him few twinges in regard to these surreptitious meetings.  It would be different, he told himself, had Stephen Foster chosen to receive him as a visitor.  But he had gathered, from what Madge told him, that her father was eccentric, and detested visitors—­that he would permit nothing to break the monotonous and regular habits of the secluded old house.  Madge admitted that one friend of his, a young man, came sometimes; but she intimated unmistakably that she did not like him.  Jack was curious to know what business took Stephen Foster to town every day, but on that subject the girl never spoke.

As the young artist sat watching the fire in the grate, his fancy painted pleasing pictures.  “Why should I not marry?” he mused.  “Bachelor life is well enough in its way, but it can’t compare with a snug house, and one’s own dining-table, and a charming wife to drive away the occasional blue-devils.  I have money put aside, and it won’t be long till I’m making an easy twelve hundred a year.  By Jove, I will—­”

A noisy rap at the door interrupted Jack’s train of thought, and brought him to his feet.

“Come in!” he cried, expecting to see Nevill.

But the visitor was a telegraph boy, bearing the familiar brown envelope.  Jack signed for it, and tore open the message.

“Awfully seedy,” Victor Nevill wired.  “Sorry I can’t get out to-night.  Am going to bed.”

“No answer,” said Jack, dismissing the boy.  With his hands in his pockets he strolled undecidedly about the studio for a couple of minutes.  “I hope nothing serious is the matter with Nevill,” he reflected.  “He’s not the sort of a chap to go to bed unless he feels pretty bad.  What shall I do now?  I must be quick about it if I want to get any dinner in town.  It’s past eight, and—­”

There was the sound of slow footsteps out in the passage, followed by the nervous jingling of the electric bell.

“Who can that be?” Jack muttered.

He pulled a cord that turned the gas higher in the big circlet of jets overhead, and opened the door curiously.  The man who entered the studio was a complete stranger, and it was certain that he was not an Englishman, if dress and appearance could decide that fact.  He was very tall and well-built, with a handsome face, so deeply tanned as to suggest a recent residence in a tropical country.  His mustaches were twisted into waxed points, and there was a good deal of gray in his beard, which was parted German fashion in the middle, and carefully brushed to each side.  His top hat was unmistakably French, with a flat rim, and his boots were of patent leather.  As he opened his long caped cloak, the collar of which he kept turned up, it was seen that he was in evening dress.