"About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's Emblazoned,'" I
interposed, smiling.

"Yes," he continued, slowly, "about armour also--may be--but he is wrong
in regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who, as you know, killed his
wife's traducer years ago, and went to Australia where he did not long
survive his wife."

"Mr. Wilde is wrong," murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but her
voice was sweet and calm.

"Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde is
wrong," I said.




II

I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so often
climbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor.
Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in.

When he had double-locked the door and pushed a heavy chest against it,
he came and sat down beside me, peering up into my face with his little
light-coloured eyes. Half a dozen new scratches covered his nose and
cheeks, and the silver wires which supported his artificial ears had
become displaced. I thought I had never seen him so hideously
fascinating. He had no ears. The artificial ones, which now stood out at