statement confirms my own view of the case. The young lady is
excitable, and has been deceived."

Emily de Reuss inclined her head, and touched the knob of an electric
bell. At the door the officer turned back.

"It would perhaps be as well," he said, "if you would favour us with the
name of the gentleman who was your companion."

She hesitated.

"I think it quite unnecessary," she answered. "I have certain reasons,
not perhaps very serious ones, but still worth consideration, for not
publishing it abroad who my companion was. It must be sufficient for
you that he was one of my fellow-guests at Maddenham Priory, and a
friend for whom I can vouch."

The servant was at the door. Mr. Grey bowed.

"As your ladyship wishes, of course," he said.

* * * * *

Emily de Reuss made no immediate movement to rejoin her guest. She was
a woman of nerve and courage, but this had rather taken her breath away.
She had had no time for thought. She had answered as though by
instinct. It was only now that she realised what she had done. She had
lied deliberately, had placed herself, should the truth ever be known,
in an utterly false if not a dangerous position, for the sake of a boy
of whose antecedents she knew nothing, and on whom rested, at any rate,
the shadow of a very ugly suspicion. She had done this, who frankly
owned to an absorbing selfishness, whose conduct of life ever gravitated
from the centre of self. After all, what folly! She had been generous
upon impulse. How ridiculous!

She walked slowly out to where Douglas sat waiting. She came upon him
like a ghost in the dim light, and when the soft rustling of her gown
announced her presence, he started violently, and turned a bloodless
face with twitching lips and eager eyes to hers. The sight of it was a
shock to her. He had been living in fear, then--her falsehoods for his
sake had been necessary.

"Has he gone?" he asked incoherently.

"Yes."

"Was it--about me?"

"Yes."

"You'd better tell me," he begged.

She sat down by his side and glanced around. They were alone and out of
earshot from the windows.

"My visitor," she said, "was a detective--from Scotland Yard. He came
to know if I could give him any information about my fellow--passenger
from Accreton on February 10th."

"Why? Why did he want to know?"

"There was a murder, he said--a Cumberland farmer, and a young man named
Douglas Guest was missing."

"Douglas Gue