“Very well, madam.”

Stella Croyle’s eyes were drawn when she was left alone to that cupboard in which her dressing-bag was stowed away.  But she arrested them and covered them with her hands.

“This is my last chance,” she said to herself aloud in the anguish of her spirit.  If it failed, there was nothing in front of her but a loneliness which each year must augment.  Youth and high spirits or the assumption of high spirits—­these she must have if she were to keep her place in her poor little circle—­and both were slipping from her fast.  “This is my last chance.”  She stood in front of her mirror in her dancing frock, her dark hair exquisitely dressed, her face hauntingly wistful.  After all, she was beautiful.  Why shouldn’t she win?  Jenny thought that she could.

At that moment Jenny was slipping noiselessly along a corridor to the northern side of the house.  The lights were all off; a pencil of moonlight here and there from an interstice in the curtains alone touched her as she passed.  At one window she stopped, and softly lifted the blind.  She looked out and was satisfied.

“Thought so!” she murmured, with a little vindictive smile.  Just beneath her was that long window of the library which Joan had been at such pains to arrange.

Jenny stationed herself by the window.  The night was very still.  She could hear the voices of the servants in the dining-room round the angle of the house, and see the light from its windows lying in frames upon the grass.  Then the light went out, and silence fell.

From time to time the hum of a motor-car swelled and diminished to its last faint vibrations on the distant road; and as each car passed Jenny stiffened at her post.  She looked at her watch, turning the dial to the moonlight.  It was ten minutes past nine now.  The cars had left Rackham Park well before nine.  She would not have long to wait now!  As she slipped her watch again into her waistband she drew back with an instinctive movement, although the window at which she stood had been this last half-hour in shadow.  For under a great copper beech on the grass in front of her a man was standing.  The sight of him was a shock to her.

She wondered how he had come, how long he had been there—­and why?  Some explanation flashed upon her.

“My goodness me!” she whispered.  “You could knock me down with a hairpin.  So you could!”

Whilst she watched that solitary figure beneath the tree, another motor whizzed along the road.  The noise of its engine grew louder—­surely louder than any which, standing at this window, she had heard before.  Had it turned into the park? off the main road.  Was it coming to the house?  Before Jenny could answer these questions in her mind, the noise ceased altogether.  Jenny held her breath; and round the angle of the house a girl came running swiftly, her skirt sparkling like silver in the moonlight, and a white cloak drawn about her shoulders.  She