of her girls were out. She presented them collectively, and the eldest
of them charmingly reminded Lanfear that he had once had the magnanimity
to dance with her when she sat, in a little girl's forlorn despair of
being danced with, at one of those desolate hops of the good old Osprey
House.

"Yes; and now," her mother followed, "we can't wait a moment longer, if
we're to get our train for Monte Carlo, girls. We're not going to play,
doctor," she made time to explain, "but we are going to look on. Will
you tell your father, dear," she said, taking the girl's hands
caressingly in hers, and drawing her to her motherly bosom, "that we
found you, and did our best to find him? We can't wait now--our carriage
is champing the bit at the foot of the stairs--but we're coming back in
a week, and then we'll do our best to look you up again." She included
Lanfear in her good-bye, and all her girls said good-bye in the same
way, and with a whisking of skirts and twitter of voices they vanished
through the shrubbery, and faded into the general silence and general
sound like a bevy of birds which had swept near and passed by.

Miss Gerald sank quietly into her place, and sat as if nothing had
happened, except that she looked a little paler to Lanfear, who remained
on foot trying to piece together their interrupted tete-a-tete, but not
succeeding, when her father reappeared, red and breathless, and wiping
his forehead. "Have they been here, Nannie?" he asked. "I've been
following them all over the place, and the _portier_ told me just now
that he had seen a party of ladies coming down this way."

He got it all out, not so clearly as those women had got everything in,
Lanfear reflected, but unmistakably enough as to the fact, and he looked
at his daughter as he repeated: "Haven't the Bells been here?"

[Illustration: "SHE SHOOK HER HEAD, AND SAID,... 'NOBODY HAS BEEN HERE,
EXCEPT--'"]

She shook her head, and said, with her delicate quiet: "Nobody has been
here, except--" She glanced at Lanfear, who smiled, but saw no opening
for himself in the strange situation. Then she said: "I think I will go
and lie down a while, now, papa. I'm rather tired. Good-bye," she said,
giving Lanfear her hand; it felt limp and cold; and then she turned to
her father again. "Don't you come, papa! I can get back perfectly well
by myself. Stay with--"

"I will go with you," her father said, "and if Dr. Lanfear doesn't mind
coming--"

"Certainly I wi