was at breakfast in his flat; Aynesworth had been in an
adjoining room sorting his correspondence. He accepted the two letters,
and glanced them through without remark. But whereas he bestowed
scarcely a second's consideration upon the broad sheet of white paper
with the small coronet and the faint perfume of violets, the second
letter apparently caused him some annoyance. He read it through for a
second time with a slight frown upon his forehead.

"You must cancel my engagements for two days, Aynesworth," he said. "I
have to go out of town."

Aynesworth nodded.

"There's nothing very special on," he remarked. "Do you want me to go
with you?"

"It is not necessary," Wingrave answered. "I am going," he added, after
a moment's pause, "to Cornwall."

Aynesworth was immediately silent. The one time when Wingrave had spoken
to him as an employer, was in answer to some question of his as to what
had eventually become of the treasures of Tredowen. He had always since
scrupulously avoided the subject.

"Be so good as to look out the trains for me," Wingrave continued. "I
cannot go until the afternoon," he added after a momentary pause. "I
have an engagement for luncheon. Perhaps, if you are not too busy, you
will see that Morrison packs some things for me."

He moved to the writing table, and wrote a few lines to the Marchioness,
regretting that his absence from town would prevent his dining with
her on the following day. Then he studied the money column in several
newspapers for half an hour, and telephoned to his broker. At eleven
o'clock, he rode for an hour in the quietest part of the park, avoiding,
so far as possible, anyone he knew, and galloping whenever he could. It
was the only form of exercise in which he was known to indulge although
the knowledge of English games, which he sometimes displayed, was a
little puzzling to some of his acquaintances. On his return, he made
a simple but correct toilet, and at half-past one he met Lady Ruth at
Prince's Restaurant.

Lady Ruth's gown of dove color, with faint touches of blue, was
effective, and she knew it. Nevertheless, she was a little pale, and her
manner lacked that note of quiet languor which generally characterized
it. She talked rather more than usual, chattering idly about the
acquaintances to whom she was continually nodding and bowing. Her face
hardened a little as the Marchioness, on her way through the room with a
party of friends, stopped at their tab