on as to who had taken the
box from the library was settled.

It was now half-past eight. I made my way from room to room and from
group to group looking for Sinclair. At last I returned to my old post
near the library door, and was instantly rewarded by the sight of his
figure approaching from a small side-passage in company with the butler,
Dutton. His face, as he stepped into the full light of the open hall,
showed discomposure, but not the extreme distress I had anticipated.
Somehow, at sight of it, I found myself seeking the shadow just as he
had done a short time before, and it was in one of the recesses made by
a row of bay-trees that we came face to face.

He gave me one look, then his eyes dropped.

"Miss Camerden has lost a pin from her hair," he impressively explained
to me. Then, turning to Dutton, he nonchalantly remarked: "It must be
somewhere in this hall; perhaps you will be good enough to look for it."

"Certainly," replied the man. "I thought she had lost something when I
saw her come out of the library a little while ago, holding her hand to
her hair."

My heart gave a leap, then sank cold and almost pulseless in my breast.
In the hum to which all sounds had sunk, I heard Sinclair's voice rise
again in the question with which my own mind was full.

"When was that? After Mr. Armstrong went into the room, or before?"

"Oh, after he fell asleep. I had just come from putting out the gas when
I saw Miss Camerden slip in and almost immediately come out again. I
will search for the pin very carefully, sir."

So Mr. Armstrong had made a mistake! It was Dorothy, and not Gilbertine,
whom he had seen leaving the room. I braced myself up and met Sinclair's
eye.

"Dorothy's dress is grey to-night; but Mr. Armstrong's eye may not be
very good for colours."

"It is possible that both were in the room," was Sinclair's reply. But I
could see that he advanced this theory solely out of consideration for
me; that he did not really believe it. "At all events," he went on, "we
cannot prove anything this way; we must revert to our original idea. I
wonder if Gilbertine will give me the chance to speak to her."

"You will have an easier task than I," was my half-sullen retort. "If
Dorothy perceives that I wish to approach her, she has but to lift her
eyes to any of the half-dozen fellows here, and the thing becomes
impossible."

"There is to be a rehearsal of the ceremony at half-past ten. I might
get a word in