"Yes," interposed Mrs. Delarayne; and then she proceeded to explain to Sir Joseph what Denis meant, and declared his scheme to be eminently dignified and proper. It met with her entire approval.

A discussion followed as to the best way of explaining to the others the reason of Denis's sudden departure, and various suggestions were made.

Sir Joseph volunteered to be able to account for the young man's absence on the score of business. Denis himself inclined to the view that some family trouble would provide the best excuse. His mother might be ill.

But Mrs. Delarayne, anxious above all to avoid the sort of explanation that might provoke dangerous sympathies for Denis in any female heart, agreed that a business excuse would be best.

It was therefore decided that Sir Joseph would receive a sudden summons from London, that Denis would be dispatched to attend to the business, and that what happened after that the rest of the party would not need to be told.

All at once a commotion on the terrace, in which the clamour of a score of different voices, all making different suggestions at the same time, mingled with the sound of heavy footfalls, caused the party in the drawing-room to repair to the scene of the disturbance.

"What on earth's the matter?" cried Mrs. Delarayne aghast, as she beheld the group advancing slowly from the top of the steps. "Anybody hurt?"

"Yes," said Agatha coming towards her, and looking very much agitated.

"Stephen has been shot in the shoulder."

"Nothing serious!" shouted the injured youth, as he came forward on the arms of Guy and the Incandescent Gerald.

"Has a doctor been sent for?" Sir Joseph demanded.

"Yes, one of the under-keepers went to the garage, and a car left a moment ago," said Agatha.

"But how did it happen?" cried Mrs. Delarayne shrilly.

"Lord Henry did it," said Miss Mallowcoid, nodding her head resentfully, as if to imply to her sister that now there could no longer be any question as to who had been right all this time in regard to their estimate of the young nobleman.

"Lord Henry?" Mrs. Delarayne repeated, utterly confused.

"Yes, he did it by accident," Mrs. Tribe explained.

"Lord Henry!" the baronet ejaculated under his breath. "Damn Lord Henry!" And Mrs. Delarayne, Miss Mallowcoid, and Denis regarded him each in their own peculiar way.

Stephen was laid on Mrs. Delarayne's _chaise-longue_ on the terrace.

Brandy was fetched and Mrs. Delarayne knelt down beside him. His shoulder was already neatly bandaged, but his torn shirt, his waistcoat, and his sleeve, were saturated with blood.

"Is it painful, dear lad?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired.

"No, not so very," he replied.

"He only says that, of course!" Miss Mallowcoid averred in a whisper to Sir Joseph. "But you can see he's in agony." The spinster was evidently desirous of making the case look as black as possible.

"Who bandaged him up like that?" Sir Joseph asked of Guy.

"Lord Henry."

Sir Joseph tossed his head. It seemed as if he must never hear the last of that name. "But where is he?" he enquired.

"I can't think," said Mrs. Tribe. "As soon as he had sent someone after a doctor and bandaged Stephen up, he ran away from us."

Sir Joseph repeated "ran away from you," with an air of complete mystification, and Miss Mallowcoid raised her brows more than ever, as if to imply that she, at least, expected nothing else.

"Yes," added Leonetta, "he left us and went in the direction of 'The Fastness'."

"I wonder where that jackass has gone for a doctor?" exclaimed the baronet after a while. "Did you see the car go?"

"Yes," whispered Leonetta, "the car left long before we had brought Stephen here. We wanted it to drop him first, but he insisted on walking."

Then in the distance the sound of a familiar motor-horn was heard, and through the trees could be seen the glittering brass-work of a car. The baronet's head chauffeur in smart mufti was driving,--he had been caught just as he was setting out for an evening in Folkestone,--and the car darted along the drive, and gracefully took all the corners in a manner that gladdened the hearts of the anxious spectators on the terrace.

A grating of wheels on the ground, a spasmodic lunge forward, and the vehicle stopped dead at the foot of the steps.

An elderly gentleman descended from the car.

"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Delarayne, "it's Dr. Thackeray!"

It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park.

It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning, and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the mistake he had made.

In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to achieve but one object,--to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at Brineweald.

The sudden return of Denis to help to find the bangle had been the opportunity. Unfortunately, Lord Henry felt that he had not reckoned sufficiently with two possibilities, each of which, in itself, was serious enough: on the one hand, Denis's return to Brineweald long before himself, and on the other, the confirmation that Vanessa and Tribe might offer to Denis's report, if Denis chose to tell. First of all, in the few seconds he had had to consider the matter, it had struck him as extremely improbable that Denis would either have the time or the inclination to tell Cleopatra direct, before he himself had had a chance of speaking to her; and, secondly, he had doubted whether Vanessa and Tribe could actually have seen him embracing Leonetta.

In these circumstances he had taken the risk which he felt he was entitled to take in war; but apparently,--at least so he feared,--he had miscalculated. He had failed to take into account Denis's mad fury, and the extremes to which this might possibly drive him.

He had not once been mistaken in his estimate of the kind of human life with which he was experimenting; for he had correctly anticipated the probable effects that the knowledge of his action would have upon Cleopatra. He had, however, certainly staked upon luck, and, this time, it appeared to have turned against him.

Thus he was tormented by the gravest qualms as he made his way to "The Fastness," and when Wilmott informed him that Miss Cleopatra had not been seen since she had gone with the rest of Mrs. Delarayne's party in Sir Joseph's car, early that morning, his worst fears were confirmed.

"Would you mind looking all over the house?" he said. "It is just possible she may have come in without your noticing."

The girl obeyed and even invited him to join in the search. Their efforts, however, revealed no trace of Cleopatra.

Lord Henry was at his wits' end. He began to be filled by a secret feeling of guilt, a feeling that he had gone too far. He had been foolhardy; he had exceeded his duty. Nothing remained to fortify him, in his present tragic dilemma, but the conviction that he had acted all along as if the affair, far from being a matter simply for Cleopatra's family, had been his personal business, his intimate concern.

He thought of the beach. It did not strike him as probable that the girl would have gone thither in her solitary despair. However, he wished to allow for every possible chance. He therefore went to the grocer's at Brineweald and telephoned to Stonechurch, to the establishment that provided hot sea-baths on the front. Had they heard of any disaster among the bathers on the beach during the last two hours? Had any disaster been reported from the lonely portions of the shore? Would someone please go out to enquire? In a few minutes he received a reassuring reply, and he left the shop. In his present state of mind, however, even if he had been told that she had attempted suicide in the waves and been rescued, at least this intelligence would have provided something definite to which to cling, and he would have felt almost grateful.

He enquired of one or two cottagers whether they had seen the elder Miss Delarayne at all that day; but again his efforts were entirely fruitless.

Her rescue might be a matter of minutes, perhaps of seconds, and yet it seemed as if he could do nothing. Never had he gazed upon a peaceful village street with feelings of such tumultuous woe. Helplessness and impotence are intolerable at any time, but they are the cruellest torture when a dear human life seems to be at stake.

It occurred to him that she might have gone to Sandlewood, which was the nearest station, and where the stationmaster would be sure to have seen her. She might already have taken the train in the London direction, or to Shorncliffe or Folkestone. In any case he was so deeply convinced that her disappearance portended tragedy, that he began to wonder whether he ought not at once to inform the police.

Had he been less involved in the affair, himself, he would have done so immediately; but his hopes of finding some trace of her at Sandlewood station induced him to wait. If he failed again, he would inform the authorities.

Thus resolved, he returned as quickly as possible to Brineweald Park, in order to take advantage of the shortest cut to Sandlewood, and it was just as he was on the point of crossing the fringe of the wood, that he saw about a hundred and fifty yards to his left, the whole of the shooting party pick up the under-keepers, and proceed in the same direction as himself.

There was not a sound among the trees. The air was still. The ground was moist with the recent rain, and as he strode silently along one of the narrow footpaths, he could not help from time to time glancing half-shamefully at the sublimely careless party in the distance, on whom he feared, through his high-handed action of the morning, some grief or disgrace was almost bound to descend before nightfall.