hing else.

"Yes," added Leonetta, "he left us and went in the direction of 'The
Fastness'."

"I wonder where that jackass has gone for a doctor?" exclaimed the
baronet after a while. "Did you see the car go?"

"Yes," whispered Leonetta, "the car left long before we had brought
Stephen here. We wanted it to drop him first, but he insisted on
walking."

Then in the distance the sound of a familiar motor-horn was heard, and
through the trees could be seen the glittering brass-work of a car. The
baronet's head chauffeur in smart mufti was driving,--he had been caught
just as he was setting out for an evening in Folkestone,--and the car
darted along the drive, and gracefully took all the corners in a manner
that gladdened the hearts of the anxious spectators on the terrace.

A grating of wheels on the ground, a spasmodic lunge forward, and the
vehicle stopped dead at the foot of the steps.

An elderly gentleman descended from the car.

"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Delarayne, "it's Dr. Thackeray!"

* * * * *

It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an
hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment
when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park.

It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover
Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of
her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in
the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be
accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning,
and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the
others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only
fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster
that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt
it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the
mistake he had made.

In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to
achieve but one object,--to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta
could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon
Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that
young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would
abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity
had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at
B