They came round the last corner—came to the deep pit and to something lying in it that had not been there before, the body of a woman lying in a wonderful pose, arms flung wide and head thrown back. A dead face and body that were triumphant and beautiful in the moonlight.

Words came back to Mr Satterthwaite dimly—Mr Quin’s words: ‘wonderful things on a rubbish heap’ … He understood them now.

Oranoff was murmuring broken phrases. The tears were streaming down his face.

‘I loved her. Always I loved her.’ He used almost the same words that had occurred to Mr Satterthwaite earlier in the day. ‘We were of the same world, she and I. We had the same thoughts, the same dreams. I would have loved her always …’

‘How do you know?’

The Russian stared at him—at the fretful peevishness of the tone.

‘How do you know?’ went on Mr Satterthwaite. ‘It is what all lovers think—what all lovers say … There is only one lover—’

He turned and almost ran into Mr Quin. In an agitated manner, Mr Satterthwaite caught him by the arm and drew him aside.

‘It was you,’ he said. ‘It was you who were with her just now?’

Mr Quin waited a minute and then said gently:

‘You can put it that way, if you like.’

‘And the maid didn’t see you?’

‘The maid didn’t see me.’

‘But I did. Why was that?’

‘Perhaps, as a result of the price you have paid, you see things that other people—do not.’

Mr Satterthwaite looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute or two. Then he began suddenly to quiver all over like an aspen leaf.

‘What is this place?’ he whispered. ‘What is this place?’

‘I told you earlier today. It is My lane.’

‘A Lovers’ Lane,’ murmured Mr Satterthwaite. ‘And people pass along it.’

‘Most people, sooner or later.’

‘And at the end of it—what do they find?’

Mr Quin smiled. His voice was very gentle. He pointed at the ruined cottage above them.

‘The house of their dreams—or a rubbish heap—who shall say?’

Mr Satterthwaite looked up at him suddenly. A wild rebellion surged over him. He felt cheated, defrauded.

‘But I—’ His voice shook. ‘I have never passed down your lane …’

‘And do you regret?’

Mr Satterthwaite quailed. Mr Quin seemed to have loomed to enormous proportions … Mr Satterthwaite had a vista of something at once menacing and terrifying … Joy, Sorrow, Despair.

And his comfortable little soul shrank back appalled.

‘Do you regret?’ Mr Quin repeated his question. There was something terrible about him.

‘No,’ Mr Satterthwaite stammered. ‘N-no.’

And then suddenly he rallied.

‘But I see things,’ he cried. ‘I may have been only a looker-on at Life—but I see things that other people do not. You said so yourself, Mr Quin …’

But Mr Quin had vanished.

The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman