pause, turned his melancholy gray eyes on me.

"Capitaine Rotherby," he said, "my friend and I represent a little
group of people who have some interest in the place where we met last
night. We are deputed to ask you to explain, if you can, your
conduct,--your attack, which it seemed to us was absolutely
unprovoked, upon an habitue of the place and an associate of our own."

"There is only one explanation which I can make," I answered slowly.
"I went there, as Louis will tell you, absolutely a stranger, and
absolutely by chance. Chance decreed that I should meet face to face
the one man in the world against whom I bear a grudge, the one man
whom I had sworn to punish whenever and wherever I might meet him."

Monsieur Decresson bowed.

"There are situations," he admitted, "which can only be dealt with in
that manner. Do not think me personal or inquisitive, I beg of you,
but--I ask in your own interests--what had you against this man
Tapilow?"

"Monsieur Decresson," I said, "I will answer you frankly. The man whom
I punished last night, I punished because I have proved him to be
guilty of conduct unbecoming to a gentleman. I punished him because he
broke the one social law which in my country, at any rate, may not be
transgressed with impunity."

"What you are saying now," Monsieur Grisson interrupted, "amounts to
an accusation. Tapilow is known to us. These things must be spoken of
seriously. You speak upon your honor as an English soldier and a