“Except about her appearance,” put in Geoffrey.  “The landlord said he thought she must be an actress, or ‘summat o’ that sort.’  She had such a strange way of looking at you.  But when we asked what that meant, he scratched his head and couldn’t tell us.  All that we got out of him was he wouldn’t like to have her for a lodger—­’she’d frighten his missus.’  Oh, and he did say that she looked dead-tired, and that he advised her not to walk to Feetham, but to wait for the five o’clock bus that goes from the village to the station.  But she said she liked walking, and would find some cool place in the park to sit in—­till it was time to catch the train.”

“She was well-dressed, he said,” added Buntingford, addressing himself to Cynthia Welwyn, who sat beside him; “and his description of her hat and veil, etc., quite agreed with old Stimson’s account.”

There was a silence, in which everybody seemed to be trying to piece the evidence together as to the mysterious onlooker of the night, and make a collected whole of it.  Buntingford and Geoffrey were especially thoughtful and preoccupied.  At last the former, after smoking a while without speaking, got up with the remark that he must see to some letters before post.

“Oh, no!”—­pleaded Helena, intercepting him, and speaking so that he only should hear.  “To-morrow’s Whitsunday, and Monday’s Bank Holiday.  What’s the use of writing letters?  Don’t you remember—­you promised to show me those drawings before dinner—­and may Geoffrey come, too?”

A sudden look of reluctance and impatience crossed Buntingford’s face.  Helena perceived it at once, and drew back.  But Buntingford said immediately: 

“Oh, certainly.  In half an hour, I’ll have the portfolios ready.”

He walked away.  Helena sat flushed and silent, her eyes on the ground, twisting and untwisting the handkerchief on her lap.  And, presently, she too disappeared.  The rest of the party were left to discuss with Geoffrey French the ins and outs of the evidence, and to put up various theories as to the motives of the woman of the yew trees; an occupation that lasted them till dressing-time.

Cynthia Welwyn took but little share in it.  She was sitting rather apart from the rest, under a blue parasol which made an attractive combination with her semi-transparent black dress and the bright gold of her hair.  In reality, her thoughts were busy with quite other matters than the lady of the yews.  It did not seem to her of any real importance that a half-crazy stranger, attracted by the sounds and sights of the ball, on such a beautiful night, should have tried to watch it from the lake.  The whole tale was curious, but—­to her—­irrelevant.  The mystery she burned to find out was nearer home.  Was Helena Pitstone falling in love with Philip?  And if so, what was the effect on Philip?  Cynthia had not much enjoyed her dance.  The dazzling, the unfair ascendency of youth, as embodied in Helena,