g; then had come the sound of talk and laughter, as
the party from the music-room had adjourned to the garden. But slowly
these sounds had lessened. The laughter had ceased; and the
entertainment out-of-doors had died down to the murmuring of two men's
voices and the slow pacing of a couple of pairs of feet up and down the
terrace beneath the card-room window. At last even this had ended with
the heavy shutting of a door; and, save for the occasional distant
sound of a closing window, silence reigned in the house.

The sixth rubber was drawing to its close, when the door of the
card-room opened quietly and Lady Diana entered, looking slightly tired
and pale.

She came forward to the table and stood looking at the players.

"Don't stir!" she said. "I only came to see that you are all right. Who
has been lucky?"

Mrs. Bathurst looked up self-confidently.

"We have--enormously," she said. "Mrs. Milbanke was most daring, and
doubled our ordinary stakes. The results have been wonderful--for us."

"Indeed!" Lady Diana's voice sounded unusually cold; and Clodagh was
conscious that her observant eyes had turned upon her.

But she played on, without looking up.

At last the final trick was won, the score reckoned up, and the players
rose.

Deerehurst pushed back his chair, and looked about him speculatively.

"It feels late!" he said. "What is the time, Lady Diana? My conscience
begins to trouble me!"

Lady Diana smiled a little conventionally.

"I think it is about half-past two," she answered.

"Oh, Lady Diana, how wicked of us!" Mrs. Bathurst affected a charming
penitence.

Mansfeldt looked genuinely uncomfortable and distressed.

"We owe you an apology!" he said. "We have kept you from your rest."

But Lady Diana graciously waived all apologies aside.

"It is nothing!--nothing!" she assured them. "We are not so rustic as
all that. Lord Deerehurst, you and Mr. Mansfeldt will find George in
the smoking-room." She gave the suggestion with her usual hospitable
warmth; but the smile that accompanied the words was not the smile she
had given to Clodagh the evening before--or that morning at breakfast.

And Clodagh, keenly sensitive to this altered bearing, stood silent,
offering no apology. At last, as though the tension of the position
compelled her to action, she held out her hand in a half-diffident,
half-defiant gesture.

"Good-night, Lady Diana! Good-night, Rose! Good-night, Mr. Mansfeldt.
Good-night!"