e castle. My aunt does not know about it
yet, nor anybody.'

'I ought to tell her.'

'No, not yet. I don't wish it.'

'Then everything stands as usual?'

She lightly nodded.

'That is, I may love you: but you still will not say you love me.'

She nodded again, and directing his attention to the advancing shopman,
said, 'Please not a word more.'

Soon after this, they left the jeweller's, and parted, Paula driving
straight off to the station and Somerset going on his way uncertainly
happy. His re-impression after a few minutes was that a special journey
to town to fetch that magnificent necklace which she had not once
mentioned to him, but which was plainly to be the medium of some proud
purpose with her this evening, was hardly in harmony with her assertions
of indifference to the attractions of the Hunt Ball.

He got into a cab and drove to his club, where he lunched, and mopingly
spent a great part of the afternoon in making calculations for the
foundations of the castle works. Later in the afternoon he returned to
his chambers, wishing that he could annihilate the three days remaining
before the tenth, particularly this coming evening. On his table was a
letter in a strange writing, and indifferently turning it over he found
from the superscription that it had been addressed to him days before at
the Lord-Quantock-Arms Hotel, Markton, where it had lain ever since, the
landlord probably expecting him to return. Opening the missive, he found
to his surprise that it was, after all, an invitation to the Hunt Ball.

'Too late!' said Somerset. 'To think I should be served this trick a
second time!'

After a moment's pause, however, he looked to see the time of day. It
was five minutes past five--just about the hour when Paula would be
driving from Markton Station to Stancy Castle to rest and prepare
herself for her evening triumph. There was a train at six o'clock, timed
to reach Markton between eleven and twelve, which by great exertion he
might save even now, if it were worth while to undertake such a scramble
for the pleasure of dropping in to the ball at a late hour. A moment's
vision of Paula moving to swift tunes on the arm of a person or persons
unknown was enough to impart the impetus required. He jumped up, flung
his dress clothes into a portmanteau, sent down to call a cab, and in a
few minutes was rattling off to the railway which had borne Paula away
from London just five hours earlier.

Once in t