"Certainly! I asked because it seems to me that we are coming to a point
where my questions might be painful to you."

"It is not merely that I love Mimi, but I have reason to look on Lady
Arabella as her enemy," Adam continued.

"Her enemy?"

"Yes. A rank and unscrupulous enemy who is bent on her destruction."

Sir Nathaniel went to the door, looked outside it and returned, locking
it carefully behind him.




CHAPTER XX--METABOLISM


"Am I looking grave?" asked Sir Nathaniel inconsequently when he
re-entered the room.

"You certainly are, sir."

"We little thought when first we met that we should be drawn into such a
vortex. Already we are mixed up in robbery, and probably murder, but--a
thousand times worse than all the crimes in the calendar--in an affair of
ghastly mystery which has no bottom and no end--with forces of the most
unnerving kind, which had their origin in an age when the world was