He left the house with his ears burning, his; nerves tingling, his brain whirling.  What had caused this astonishing change?  Why had she turned against him so suddenly, so strangely?  Prince Ugo!  The truth flashed into his mind with startling force, dispelling all uncertainty, all doubt.  Her lover had forstalled him, had requested or demanded his banishment and she had acquiesced, with a heartlessness that was beyond belief.  He had been mistaken as to the extent of her regard for him; he had misjudged the progress of his wooing; he awoke to the truth that her heart was impregnable and that he had not so much as approached the citadel of her love.

Dickey was pacing their rooms excitedly when Quentin entered.  Turk stared gloomily from the open window, and there was a sort of savageness in his silent, sturdy back that bespoke volumes of restraint.

“Good Lord, Phil, everybody knows you have refused to fight the prince.  The newspaper men have been here and they have tried to pump me dry.  Turk says one of the men downstairs is telling everybody that you are afraid of Ravorelli.  What are we going to do?” He stopped before the newcomer and there was reproach in his manner.  Quentin dejectedly threw himself into a chair and stared at the floor in silence.

“Turk!” he called at last.  “I want you to carry a note to Miss Garrison, and I want you to make sure that she reads it.  I don’t know how the devil you are to do it, but you must.  Don’t bother me, Dickey.  I don’t care a continental what the fellow downstairs says; I’ve got something else to think about.”  He threw open the lid to one of his trunks and ruthlessly grabbed up some stationery.  In a minute he was at the table, writing.

“Is Kapolski dead?” asked Dickey.

“I don’t know and don’t care.  I’ll explain in a minute.  Sit down somewhere and don’t stare, Dickey—­for the Lord’s sake, don’t stare like a scared baby.”  He completed the feverishly written note, sealed the envelope, and thrust it into Turk’s hands.  “Now, get that note to her, or don’t come back to me.  Be quick about it, too.”

Turk was off, full of fresh wonder and the importance of his mission.  Quentin took a few turns up and down the room before he remembered that he owed some sort of an explanation to his companion.

“She wouldn’t see me,” he said, briefly.

“What’s the matter?  Sick?”

“No explanation.  Just wouldn’t see me, that’s all.”

“Which means it’s all off, eh?  The prince got there first and spiked your guns.  Well?  What have you written to her?”

“That I am going to see her to-night if I have to break into the house.”

“Bravely done!  Good!  And you’ll awake in a dungeon cell to-morrow morning, clubbed to a pulp by the police.  You may break into the house, but it will be just your luck to be unable to break out of jail in time for the wedding on the 16th.  What you need is a guardian.”