-room door, he heard Lady Janet say,
"I will be with you again in a moment, Grace; don't go away."

Interpreting these words as meaning that his aunt had some business
of her own to attend to in the library, he shut the door. He had just
advanced into the smoking-room beyond, when he thought he heard the door
open again. He turned round. Lady Janet had followed him.

"Do you wish to speak to me?" he asked.

"I want something of you," Lady Janet answered, "before you go."

"What is it?"

"Your card."

"My card?"

"You have just told me not to be uneasy," said the old lady. "I _am_
uneasy, for all that. I don't feel as sure as you do that this woman
really is in the grounds. She may be lurking somewhere in the house, and
she may appear when your back in turned. Remember what you told me."

Julian understood the allusion. He made no reply.

"The people at the police station close by," pursued Lady Janet, "have
instructions to send an experienced man, in plain clothes, to any
address indicated on your card the moment they receive it. That is what
you told me. For Grace's protection, I want your card before you leave
us."

It was impossible for Julian to mention the reasons which now forbade
him to make use of his own precautions--in the very face of the
emergency which they had been especially intended to meet. How could he
declare the true Grace Roseberry to be mad? How could he give the true
Grace Roseberry into custody? On the other hand, he had personally
pledged himself (when the circumstances appeared to require it) to place
the means of legal protection from insult and annoyance at his aunt's
disposal. And now, there stood Lady Janet, unaccustomed to have her
wishes disregarded by anybody, with her band extended, waiting for the
card!

What was to be done? The one way out of the difficulty appeared to be to
submit for the moment. If he succeeded in discovering the missing woman,
he could easily take care that she should be subjected to no needless
indignity. If she contrived to slip into the house in his absence,
he could provide against that contingency by sending a second card
privately to the police station, forbidding the officer to stir in the
affair until he had received further orders. Julian made one stipulation
only before he handed his card to his aunt.

"You will not use this, I am sure, without positive and pressing
necessity," he said. "But I must make one condition. Promise me to keep
my