I looked at the letter while he was speaking.  It was addressed to “Miss Halcombe.  Care of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane.”  The handwriting was quite unknown to me.

On leaving the room I asked one last question.

“Do you happen to know,” I said, “if Sir Percival Glyde is still in Paris?”

“He has returned to London,” replied Mr. Kyrle.  “At least I heard so from his solicitor, whom I met yesterday.”

After that answer I went out.

On leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me.  I walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the north of Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a place where a long stretch of pavement was left behind me.

There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped also, and who were standing talking together.  After a moment’s reflection I turned back so as to pass them.  One moved as I came near, and turned the corner leading from the square into the street.  The other remained stationary.  I looked at him as I passed and instantly recognised one of the men who had watched me before I left England.

If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably have begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him down.  But I was bound to consider consequences.  If I once placed myself publicly in the wrong, I put the weapons at once into Sir Percival’s hands.  There was no choice but to oppose cunning by cunning.  I turned into the street down which the second man had disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway.  He was a stranger to me, and I was glad to make sure of his personal appearance in case of future annoyance.  Having done this, I again walked northward till I reached the New Road.  There I turned aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time), and waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some distance from a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to pass me.  One passed in a few minutes.  I jumped in and told the man to drive rapidly towards Hyde Park.  There was no second fast cab for the spies behind me.  I saw them dart across to the other side of the road, to follow me by running, until a cab or a cab-stand came in their way.  But I had the start of them, and when I stopped the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight.  I crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the open ground, that I was free.  When I at last turned my steps homewards, it was not till many hours later—­not till after dark.

I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room.  She had persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to show me her drawing the moment I came in.  The poor little dim faint sketch—­so trifling in itself, so touching in its associations—­was propped up carefully on the table with two books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle we allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage.  I sat down to look at the drawing, and to tell Marian, in whispers, what had happened.  The partition which divided us from the next room was so thin that we could almost hear Laura’s breathing, and we might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud.