"I'm afraid she must have gone home," she said. "She can't be found."

"Can't be found?" cried Lord Henry, with a note of deep alarm in his voice. Could she possibly have been among those who that morning had returned to help find the bangle, and he had not seen her, though she had seen him?

"Oh, I shouldn't worry," continued Mrs. Delarayne. "She's gone home, that's all. Don't look so dreadfully concerned!"

"Do you really think so?" he enquired. He felt uneasy notwithstanding.

The coincidence, if it were a coincidence, was singular in the extreme.

And yet he could not believe that Denis had told her, and Vanessa and Tribe had surely not had time to do so. He had seen them ascend the steps of the terrace. Besides,--why should they? Nevertheless, the predicament was an awkward one. He had counted on speaking to Cleopatra directly after lunch.

"Would you mind if I went to 'The Fastness'?" he asked.

"Certainly not. Go by all means," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined. "But is it as urgent as all that?"

"It's very urgent," said Lord Henry.

She scrutinised him for a moment in silence. She had always had a dark presentiment that her daughters would come between her and this man.

Lord Henry turned back into the house, fetched his hat and rain-coat, and in a moment was striding rapidly towards the Brineweald gate.

The shooting party was to leave at three o'clock, and two of the under-keepers with the ferrets were to meet them at the edge of the wood at a quarter past. It was now half-past two. Sir Joseph was enjoying his afternoon nap. Mrs. Delarayne, closeted in the library, was listening to her sister's indictment of Lord Henry, and the others were chatting on the terrace.

Denis, who had a pretty shrewd suspicion of what his interview with Sir Joseph and Mrs. Delarayne portended, looked anxiously at his watch and rose. He signed to Leonetta that he would like her to join him, but as she made no effort to move, he went over to her, and leaning over the back of her chair, whispered that he would be glad if she would take a short stroll with him.

She rose laboriously, as if he were placing himself under a tremendous obligation to her, by making her go to so much trouble; and, after assuring the others that she would not be long, followed Denis with that jerky mutinous gait in which each footfall is an angry stamp;--it is characteristic of women all the world over, when they are induced to do something of which they disapprove. For she was wondering where Lord Henry could be, and feared lest, by leaving the terrace, she would miss him when he returned.

"You know we start off at three," she said to Denis, as she caught him up.

"Yes, I know," he replied gruffly.

"Well, we haven't much time, have we?

"You're not going far, are you?"

"Only to the rose-garden," he snapped. "Don't be alarmed! I shan't keep you longer than I can help."

He lighted a cigarette. Vaguely he felt that some such subsidiary occupation might prove helpful.

"In a moment of pardonable madness," he began, "the night before last, when I rather lost my head in my passion, I made a proposition to you which I should now like to recall."

"Oh," she said.

"I don't mean that it was not sincere," he pursued, "or that I was not moved by an unalterable feeling. I mean that it was not serious enough."

"Not serious enough?" she repeated.

"No, perhaps it was not quite the right thing, either," he said. "And I'm very sorry."

"Oh, that's all right," she rejoined cheerfully.

"Well, it isn't," he observed. "Because, Leo, I seriously wanted you, and I want you still. And I ought to have asked you to become engaged to me in the proper and ordinary way, instead of what I did say."

She was silent. Her head was bowed, and she kicked one or two stones along as she walked.

He caught hold of her hand. "I want you to forget what I said the night before last," he continued, "and to ascribe it all to the madness of my feelings. I want you to say, too, that I may consider,--that from now onwards I mean,--that we are properly engaged."

Still she made no reply.

"Come, Leo, you're not hesitating, are you? Won't you marry me?"

She stopped, released her hand from his, and averted her gaze.

"Say you'll marry me, Leo! So that I can tell them in a minute or two that you have consented. Do!"

"Whatever made you think of this?" she exclaimed fretfully.

"I have been thinking of it for some time. I mean it truly," he stammered.

"But I thought you loved my sister!"

Denis retreated a step or two and regarded the girl for a moment in mystified silence.

He was staggered. This piece of brazen audacity on her part petrified him, and his face betrayed his speechless astonishment.

"I really did, Denis. I thought you loved Cleo."

"But then," he gasped, "what--what have you and I been doing all this time?"

"When?"

"Why, the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that!--in fact ever since I came down here?"

"Oh, I thought you were simply having a good time," she protested, looking perfectly guileless and charming.

"Well!" he exclaimed, choking with mingled stupefaction and rage, "I've never heard anything----"

"I did really," she interrupted. "I thought you were only flirting."

"You let me go far enough to believe anything," he objected, this time with a savour of moral indignation.

"I thought it was too far to believe anything," was her retort.

"Haven't you any feeling for me, then?" he cried, utterly nonplussed.

She dug the toe of her shoe into the ground, and watched the operation thoughtfully. "Not in that way--no."

"What?--do you allow anybody to hug you then?"