enry!" Leonetta cried, skipping up to his side, bearing a kitten.
"Do you like cats? Look at this little angel!"

Lord Henry, without looking at her, raised a hand deprecatingly.

"We are not out of the wood yet," he murmured in an aside to Mrs.
Delarayne.

"Oh, she's scratching,--do look at her, Lord Henry!" Leonetta exclaimed,
a little over anxiously this time, as she was not used to having her
self-advertising manoeuvres disregarded in this manner.

"Yes," said Lord Henry with cold courtesy, glancing at the kitten only
for a moment, and then quickly resuming his conversation with his
hostess.

Leonetta, swallowing something in her throat, skipped with a somewhat
forced affectation of childish gaiety in the direction of the house.
Lord Henry, Denis, and Vanessa, however, were the only three of the
party who correctly interpreted her action, though they appeared to be
engaged with other matters.

* * * * *

After dinner that day, when the cool of a midsummer evening had fallen
on Brineweald Park, and Cleopatra had been despatched to her bed by her
new spiritual adviser, Mrs. Delarayne, Sir Joseph, Miss Mallowcoid, and
Gerald Tribe sat down to Bridge on the terrace, Lord Henry invited
Agatha to show him over the grounds, and Mrs. Tribe and Stephen went to
the billiard room.

A moment before Lord Henry had descended the steps with his companion,
he had seen Vanessa and Guy Tyrrell depart mysteriously in the direction
of the woods, and Denis and Leonetta vanish just as mysteriously towards
Headlinge.

For the purpose he had in view, he would have preferred Vanessa for his
companion, more especially as he had noticed that she went reluctantly
with Tyrrell, but he had missed securing her by a minute, thanks to Mrs.
Delarayne's garrulousness.

He stood at the foot of the steps. It mattered not to him whither
Vanessa and her companion were bound, and observing the direction Denis
and Leonetta were taking, he walked slowly along the path to Headstone,
which was exposed for the greater length of its course, and promised to
keep him constantly in their view.

"This way, Lord Henry," said Agatha, starting in the direction of
Headlinge.

"No, if you don't mind," he said, "I prefer this path. I like the sweep
of the hill to the right. These vast stretches of grass at this hour
always make me feel that I am walking on the edge of a carpet, on which
the elves and the fairies are having t