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.  Strong, stalwart, he sat within a few feet of me, calmly eating his dinner as though my agony were a thing of little account.  He, at least, was real.

“This woman,” he continued, presently, “either is, or would like to be, mixed up with the treachery that is somewhere close upon us.  Sooner or later she will approach you.  You are warned.”

“Yes,” I repeated vaguely, “I am warned.”

“I have finished,” Colonel Ray remarked.  “Go on with your dinner and think.  I will answer any question presently.”

There were only two I put to him, and that was when my hansom had been called and I was on the point of leaving.

“Is he—­my father—­alive now?” I asked.

“I have reason to believe,” Ray answered, “that he may be dead.”

“How is it,” I asked, “that you are so well acquainted with these things?  Were you at any time my father’s friend?”

“I was acquainted with him,” Ray answered.  “We were at one time in the same regiment.  My friendship was—­with your mother.”

The answer was illuming, but he never winced.

“Indirectly,” I said, “I seem to have a good deal to thank you for.  Why do you say that you can never be my friend?”

“You are your father’s son,” he answered curtly.

“I am also my mother’s son,” I objected.

“For which reason,” he said, “I have done what I could to give you a start in life.”

And with these words he dismissed me.

* * * * *

I received Ray’s warning concerning Mrs. Smith-Lessing, the new tenant of Braster Grange, somewhere between seven and eight o’clock, and barely an hour later I found myself alone in a first-class carriage with her, and a four hours’ journey before us.  She had arrived at King’s Cross apparently only a few minutes before the departure of the train, for the platform was almost deserted when I took my seat.  Just as I had changed my hat for a cap, however, wrapped my rug around my knees, and settled down for the journey, the door of my carriage was thrown open, and I saw two women looking in, one of whom I recognized at once.  Mrs. Smith-Lessing, although the night was warm, was wearing a heavy and magnificent fur coat, and the guard of the train himself was attending her.  Behind stood a plainly dressed woman, evidently her maid, carrying a flat dressing-case.  There was a brief colloquy between the three.  It ended in dressing-case, a pile of books, a reading lamp, and a formidable array of hat-boxes, and milliner’s parcels being placed upon the rack and vacant seats in my compartment, and immediately afterwards Mrs. Smith-Lessing herself entered.  I heard her tell her maid to enter the carriage behind.  The door was closed and the guard touched off his hat.  A minute later and we were off.