e shook her head with a wistful little smile.

"I didn't mean you to do that," she said in self-reproach, "until after
supper."

In the hall Sir Chichester threw down the last of the newspapers in a
rage. "Not a word! Not one single miserable little word! I don't ask
much, goodness knows, but----" and his voice went up in an angry
incredulity. "Not one word! And I thought the _Harpoon_ was such a good
paper too!"

Sir Chichester sprang to his feet. He glanced at his guests. He turned
upon his wife.

"God bless my soul, Millie, what _are_ we waiting for? I'll tell you
girls what it is. Unless we get off at once, we had better not go at
all. Where's Joan? Where's Luttrell?"

"Here we are!" cried Luttrell from the library, and in a lower tone to
Joan, he observed, "What a bore people are to be sure, aren't they?"

The guilty couple emerged into the hall. Sir Chichester surveyed them
with severity.

"I don't know whether you have heard about it, Luttrell, but there's a
ball to-night at Harrel, and we all rather thought of going to it," he
remarked with crushing sarcasm.

"I am quite ready, sir," replied Harry humbly. Sir Chichester was
mollified.

"Very well then. We'll go."

"But Mrs. Croyle isn't down yet," said Miranda.

"Stella isn't going, dear," answered Millie Splay; and a cry of dismay
burst from Joan.

"Not going!"

The consternation in the girl's voice was so pronounced that every eye
in that hall turned to her in astonishment. There was consternation,
too, most legible in her widely-opened eyes. Her cheeks had lost their
colour. She stood for a fleeting moment before them all, an image of
terror. Then she caught at an excuse.

"Stella's ill then--since she's not going."

"It's not as bad as all that, dear," Lady Splay hastened to reassure
her. "She complained of a racking headache at dinner. She has gone to
bed."

The blood flowed back into Joan's cheeks.

"Oh, I see!" she observed slowly. "That is why her maid came to the
library for a book!"

But she was very silent throughout the quarter of an hour, which it took
them to drive to Harrel. There was somebody left behind at Rackham Park
that night. Joan had overlooked one possibility in contriving her plan,
and that possibility, now developed into fact, threatened to ruin all.
One guest remained behind in the house, and that one Joan's rival.

CHAPTER XXIV

JENNY PRASK IS INTERESTED

Rackham was a red Georgian mansion with gr