ds like a rose-garden growing out of the sea. And
even when it was dark, the sea kept its colour, the deep blue of
sapphires, where, at a distance, little white yachts and sailboats
looked like a company of crescent moons floating in an azure sky. I felt
in the sweetest mood, kind toward all the world, and particularly to Sir
Lionel. I couldn't bear to remember that I'd ever had bad thoughts, and
doubts, so I was half sub-consciously nicer to him than I ever was
before. Dick kept glaring at me, from his seat beside Mrs. Norton, and
drawing his eyebrows together when he thought Sir Lionel wasn't looking.
Going home, he got a chance for a few words, when Emily was speaking to
her brother about Mrs. Senter's headache. He said that there was
something he must say to me, alone, and he wanted me to come out into
the garden behind the hotel, to talk to him when the others had gone to
bed, but of course I refused. Then he said, would I manage to give him a
few minutes next day, and intimated, gently, that I'd be sorry if I
didn't. I told him that "I'd see"; which is always a safe answer; but I
haven't "managed" yet.

When I got back to my room at the hotel I noticed that some of my things
weren't in the places where I'd left them; and the writing portfolio in
a dressing-case which Sir Lionel _thinks_ is mine, but is really
Ellaline's (one of the Bond Street purchases), had my papers changed
about in it. The servants in the house seemed so respectable and nice, I
can't think that one of them would have pried. And yet--well, the truth
is, I'm afraid of being catty, but I can't help putting Mrs. Senter's
headache and my disturbed papers together in my mind. Two and two when
put together, make four, you know. And her room in the Swanage hotel was
next to mine. She might have been sure that we'd all go out after dinner
on such a perfect night. But why should she bother? Unless Dick has told
her something, after all? I suppose I shall never know whether it was
she or someone else who meddled. I looked through all the papers and
other things, but could find nothing "compromising," as the
adventuresses say. However, I can't quite remember what I had. Some
letter may have been taken. I have been a tiny bit worried since, for
you know Ellaline would never forgive me if anything should go wrong
now. And I've been thinking that, though Sir Lionel is no dragon, there
may be something about Honore du Guesclin which he wouldn't approve.
Ellal