“I feel I owe you an apology,” he said in a low voice.  “Bubbles Dunster has always possessed extraordinary powers of thought-reading.  I remember hearing that years ago, when she was a child.  But of course I had no idea she had developed the gift to the extent she now has—­or I should have forbidden her to exercise it to-night.”

After the three other women had all gone upstairs, Blanche Farrow lingered a moment at the bottom of the staircase; and Varick, having shepherded Sir Lyon, young Donnington, and James Tapster into the hall, joined her for a few moments.

“Bubbles is an extraordinary young creature,” he said thoughtfully.  “I shouldn’t have thought it within the power of any human being to impress me as she impressed me to-night.  What a singular gift the girl has!”

Somehow Blanche felt irritated.  “She has a remarkable memory,” she said dryly.  “And also the devil’s own impudence, Lionel.”  And then she told him of the few words she had overheard at dinner of the winter Miss Burnaby had spent in Austria a matter of forty years ago.

“Yes, that’s all very well!  But it doesn’t account for her absolutely correct description of my mother, or—­or—­”

“Yes?” said his companion sharply.

“Well—­of her mention of the word ‘arbour.’  The last time I saw my mother alive was in the arbour of our horrible little garden at Bedford.”

“That,” said Blanche thoughtfully, “was, I admit, pure thought-reading.  Good-night, Lionel.”

Varick remained standing at the foot of the staircase for quite a long while.

Yes, it had been thought-reading, of course.  But very remarkable, even so.  It was years since he had thought of that last painful talk with his mother.  She had warned him very seriously of certain—­well, peculiarities of his character.  The long-forgotten words she had used suddenly leapt into his mind as if written in letters of fire:  “Your father’s unscrupulousness, matched with my courage, make a dangerous combination, my boy.”

As he lit a cigarette, his hand shook a little, but the more he thought of it, the more he told himself that for all that had occurred with relation to himself to-night there was an absolutely natural explanation.

Take the second figure Bubbles had described?  It was obviously that of the woman on whom he had allowed his mind to dwell uneasily, intensely, this afternoon.  She was his only enemy—­if you could call the crazy creature who had been poor Milly’s companion an enemy.

The odious personality of the absurdly named Julia Pigchalke was still very present to him as he turned and joined his men guests in the beautiful camber-roofed and linen-panelled room known as the hall.  She was the one fly, albeit a very small fly, in the ointment of his deep content.

CHAPTER V

It was a good deal more than an hour later—­in fact nearer twelve than eleven o’clock—­when young Donnington got up from the comfortable chair where he had been ensconced, and put down the book which he had been reading.