...

Good-bye--unless you care to say it to me." He stood studying the note for a while; presently, lighting a match, he set fire to it and carried it blazing to the grate and flung it in, watching the blackened ashes curl up, glow, whiten, and fall in flakes to the hearth.

Then he went out into the corridor, and traversed the hall to the passage which led to the bay-window.

There was nobody there.
The stars looked in on him, twinkling with a frosty light; beneath, the shadowy fronds of palms traced a pale pattern on the glass roof of the swimming pool.

He waited a moment, turned, retraced his steps to his own door and stood listening.