from
them all, and she gloried in it.

She played bridge later--brilliantly as usual, and with success. Then
she leaned back in her chair and faced them all.

"Dear guests," she murmured, "you remember the condition, the only
condition upon which we bestowed our company upon one another in this
benighted place. You remember it was agreed that when you were bored,
you left without excuse or any foolish apologies. The same to apply to
your hostess."

"My dear Wilhelmina," Lady Peggy exclaimed, "I know what you're going to
say, and I won't go! I'm not due anywhere till the thirteenth. I won't
be stranded."

Wilhelmina laughed.

"You foolish woman!" she exclaimed. "Who wants you to go? You shall be
chatelaine--play hostess and fill the place if you like. Only you
mustn't have Leslie over more than twice a week."

"You are going to desert us?" Deyes asked coolly.

"It was in the bond, wasn't it?" she answered. "Peggy will look after
you all, I am sure."

"You mean that you are going away, to leave Thorpe?" Stephen Hurd asked
abruptly.

She turned her head to look at him. He was sitting a little outside the
circle--an attitude typical, perhaps, of his position there. The change
in her tone was slight indeed, but it was sufficient.

"I am thinking of it," she answered. "You, Gilbert, and Captain Austin
can find some men to shoot, no doubt. Ask any one you like. Peggy will
see about some women for you. I draw the line at that red-haired
Egremont woman. Anybody else!"

"This is a blow," Deyes remarked, "but it was in the bond. Nothing will
move me from here till the seventeenth--unless your _chef_ should leave.
Do we meet in Marienbad?"

"I am not sure," Wilhelmina answered, playing idly with the cards. "I
feel that my system requires something more soothing."

"I hate them all--those German baths," Lady Peggy declared. "Ridiculous
places every one of them."

"After all, you see," Wilhelmina declared, "illness of any sort is a
species of uncleanliness. I think I should like to go somewhere where
people are healthy, or at least not so disgustingly frank about their
livers."

"Why not stay here?" Stephen ventured to suggest. "I doubt whether any
one in Thorpe knows what a liver is."

"'Inutile!'" Lady Peggy exclaimed. "Wilhelmina has the 'wander fever.' I
can see it in her face. Is it the thunder, I wonder?"

Deyes walked to the window and threw it open. The storm was over, but
the rain was still falling,