briskly
down the passage into the sitting-room.

At the sight of her Eglantine forgot the whispering caution of the
conspirator; she cried loudly:

"But ze likeness! Eet ees marvellous! Incredible! Eet ees 'er leetle
ladyship exact!"

"Yes. And she'll be more like her than ever in her clothes. Hurry up
and get her into them," said the Honourable John Ruffin briskly.

He bustled them up the stairs to Pollyooly's attic; and as Eglantine
helped her into Lady Marion Ricksborough's clothes, she continued to
express her lively wonder at the likeness. She was not long making the
change, and they came quickly downstairs. But the Honourable John
Ruffin would not let them start at once.

"It's no use your getting there too early and hanging about the
station," he said firmly. "That's when you'd get spotted. You want to
get there just about three minutes before the train starts. You've no
luggage to bother you."

He made both of them eat some cake, and gave Eglantine a glass of wine
with it, for he thought that she needed something to steady her excited
nerves. Then he told her that the duchess was to pay Pollyooly a fee
of five pounds, and bade Pollyooly be sure to wire to him the time of
the train by which she was returning to London.

Then he decided that it was time for them to start, and wished them
good luck. He did not go with them, for he did not wish to be seen by
any one taking an active part in the affairs of the Duke and Duchess of
Osterley.

In the taxicab Eglantine was eloquent on the matter of the charm and
distinction of the Honourable John Ruffin: plainly he had made a deep
impression on her. But when they reached the station she resumed the
striking manners of a conspirator so admirably that in the three
minutes she spent paying the taxi-driver and buying tickets she
attracted the keen attention of two of the detectives of the railway.
They followed her, as she tiptoed about with hunched shoulders, and
watched her with the eyes of lynxes; but she puzzled them. They
assured one another that she had some game on (their knowledge of
fallen human nature was too exact for them to miss that fact) but for
the life of them they could not discover, or guess, what it was.

[Illustration: She tiptoed about with hunched shoulders]

On the platform she chose an empty compartment and stood before the
door of it for a good half-minute, looking up and down the train with
eyes even more lynxlike than t