The man called Angus emptied his coffee-cup and regarded her with mild and patient eyes.  Her own mouth took a slight twist of laughter as she resumed, “I suppose you’ve seen on the hoardings all about this `Smythe’s Silent Service’?  Or you must be the only person that hasn’t.  Oh, I don’t know much about it, it’s some clockwork invention for doing all the housework by machinery.  You know the sort of thing:  `Press a Button—­A Butler who Never Drinks.’ `Turn a Handle—­Ten Housemaids who Never Flirt.’  You must have seen the advertisements.  Well, whatever these machines are, they are making pots of money; and they are making it all for that little imp whom I knew down in Ludbury.  I can’t help feeling pleased the poor little chap has fallen on his feet; but the plain fact is, I’m in terror of his turning up any minute and telling me he’s carved his way in the world—­as he certainly has.”

“And the other man?” repeated Angus with a sort of obstinate quietude.

Laura Hope got to her feet suddenly.  “My friend,” she said, “I think you are a witch.  Yes, you are quite right.  I have not seen a line of the other man’s writing; and I have no more notion than the dead of what or where he is.  But it is of him that I am frightened.  It is he who is all about my path.  It is he who has half driven me mad.  Indeed, I think he has driven me mad; for I have felt him where he could not have been, and I have heard his voice when he could not have spoken.”

“Well, my dear,” said the young man, cheerfully, “if he were Satan himself, he is done for now you have told somebody.  One goes mad all alone, old girl.  But when was it you fancied you felt and heard our squinting friend?”

“I heard James Welkin laugh as plainly as I hear you speak,” said the girl, steadily.  “There was nobody there, for I stood just outside the shop at the corner, and could see down both streets at once.  I had forgotten how he laughed, though his laugh was as odd as his squint.  I had not thought of him for nearly a year.  But it’s a solemn truth that a few seconds later the first letter came from his rival.”

“Did you ever make the spectre speak or squeak, or anything?” asked Angus, with some interest.

Laura suddenly shuddered, and then said, with an unshaken voice, “Yes.  Just when I had finished reading the second letter from Isidore Smythe announcing his success.  Just then, I heard Welkin say, `He shan’t have you, though.’  It was quite plain, as if he were in the room.  It is awful, I think I must be mad.”

“If you really were mad,” said the young man, “you would think you must be sane.  But certainly there seems to me to be something a little rum about this unseen gentleman.  Two heads are better than one—­I spare you allusions to any other organs and really, if you would allow me, as a sturdy, practical man, to bring back the wedding-cake out of the window—­”

Even as he spoke, there was a sort of steely shriek in the street outside, and a small motor, driven at devilish speed, shot up to the door of the shop and stuck there.  In the same flash of time a small man in a shiny top hat stood stamping in the outer room.