at the Green House Club, there came a ring at our bell and a tall man stepped into the hall and asked for him. There was only a bit of a gas-flare burning in the passage then, and the man being in the shadow, I couldn't very well see his face; but I noticed that his clothes were very shabby and that he wore a rough overcoat which was a size too small for him. And his hat was an old silk one; but so black inside that a regiment of heads might have worn it.
"You desire to see Sir Nicolas Steele?" said I, not much liking the look of him, for he stood there just like a mute.
"I want to see him," he answered in a thick, husky voice, "and to see him at once."
"Well," said I, not liking his manner, "I've a notion that you can't do that, since he isn't in the house."
"Not in the house!" cried he, losing his temper all in a minute. "Oh! I'll soon know about that. Come, no lies—where is he, and where is the other?"
With this word, he took a step forward into the passage, and I saw his face for the first time. It was the face of an exceedingly handsome man, but there was a queer look in the eyes, such as I have never seen in the eyes of a human being before or since. Try as I might I couldn't describe that strange expression of his. Anger, determination, cruelty, all these were in it, but there was something beyond, a look as though the man had no power to keep his
