Douglas nodded and waited.  Rice seemed to find it not altogether easy to continue.  He dropped his voice.  The question he asked was almost a whisper.

“Is your name really Douglas Jesson—­or is it Douglas Guest?”

Douglas gasped and clutched for a moment at the tablecloth.  The room was suddenly spinning round and round, the faces of the people were shrouded in mist, his newly-acquired strength was all engrossed in a desperate struggle against that sickening sensation of fainting.  Rice’s voice seemed to come to him from a long way off.

“Drink your wine, man—­quick.”

Mechanically he obeyed.  He set the glass down empty.  Once more the faces in the restaurant were clear, the mists had passed away.  But the keen joy of living no longer throbbed in his pulses.

“How did you know?” he asked, hoarsely.

“From the story you sent us,” Rice answered.  “At first you wrote on the title-page Douglas Guest as the author.  Then apparently you changed your mind, crossed it out, and substituted Douglas Jesson, which we took to be a nom-de-plume, especially as you gave us for your address initials to a post-office.”

“Did any one else see it?”

“Not unless Drexley did.  He has never spoken to me about it.”

Douglas drank more wine.  He was unused to it, and the colour mounted to his pale cheeks.

“You have asked me a question,” he said, “and it is answered.  What else?”

“Nothing,” Rice said slowly.  “It is no concern of mine.

“You are not anxious, then,” Douglas said, “to earn a hundred pounds reward?”

“I think if I were you,” Rice said, “I would get the Courier to send you abroad.  They would do it in a minute.”

“Abroad?” Douglas looked across the table questioningly.  It was a new idea to him.  “Yes.  You could visit odd places and write impressions of them.  Yours is just the style for that sort of thing—­quick and nervous, you know, and lots of colour.  People are rabid for anything of that sort just now.  Take my tip.  Suggest it to Rawlinson.”

“I think I will,” Douglas said.  “Yes, it is a good idea.  I wonder—­”

Rice leaned once more across the table.

“You wonder what the Countess de Reuss will say.  Is that it?”

Douglas nodded.

“I should consult her, of course.”

A rare seriousness fell upon Rice.  The nonchalance, which was the most pronounced of his mannerisms, had fallen away.  It was a new man speaking.  One saw, as it were for the first time, that his hair was grey, and that the lines on his face were deeply engraven.