“You must forgive me,” I said stiffly, “but your warning seemed a little singular.  If you do not choose to gratify my curiosity, it is of no consequence.”

“Since you disregarded it,” she remarked, lifting her dress from the dew-laden grass on to which we had emerged, “it does not matter, does it?  Only you are very young, and you know little of the world.  Lord Ronald was your predecessor, and he is in a lunatic asylum.  No one knows what lies behind certain unfortunate things which have happened during the last months.  There is a mystery which is as yet unsolved.”

I smiled.

“In your heart you are thinking,” I said, “that such an unsophisticated person as myself will be an easy prey to whatever snares may be laid for me.  Is it not so?”

She looked at me with uplifted eyebrows.

“Others of more experience have been worsted,” she remarked calmly.  “Why not you?”

“If that is a serious question,” I said, “I will answer it.  Perhaps my very inexperience will be my best friend.”

“Yes?”

“Those before me,” I continued, “have thought that they knew whom to trust.  I, knowing no one, shall trust no one.”

“Not even me?” she asked, half turning her head towards me.

“Not even you,” I answered firmly.

A man’s figure suddenly appeared on the left.  I looked at him puzzled, wondering whence he had come.

“Here is your good friend, Colonel Mostyn Ray,” she remarked, with a note of banter in her tone.  “What about him?”

“Not even Colonel Mostyn Ray,” I answered.  “The notes which I take with me from each meeting are to be read over from my elaboration at the next.  Nobody is permitted to hold a pen or to make a note whilst they are being read.  Afterwards I have your father’s promise that not even he will ask for even a cursory glance at them.  I deliver them sealed to Lord Chelsford.”

Ray came up to us.  His dark eyebrows were drawn close together, and I noticed that his boots were clogged with sand.  He had the appearance of a man who had been walking far and fast.

“You keep up your good habits, Lady Angela,” he said, raising his cap.

“It is my only good one, so I am loth to let it go,” she answered.  “If you were as gallant as you appear to be energetic,” she added, glancing at his boots, “you would have stopped when I called after you, and taken me for a walk.”

His eyes shot dark lightnings at her.

“I did not hear you call,” he said.

“You had the appearance of a man who intended to, hear nothing and see nothing,” she remarked coolly.  “Never mind!  There will be no breakfast for an hour yet.  You shall take me on to Braster Hill.  Come!”

They left me at a turn in the path.  I saw their heads close together in earnest conversation.  I went on towards the house.

I entered by the back, and made my way across the great hall, which was still invaded by domestics with brushes and brooms.  Taking a small key from my watch-chain, I unfastened the door of a room almost behind the staircase, and pushed it open.  The curtains were drawn, and the room itself, therefore, almost in darkness.  I carefully locked myself in, and turned up the electric light.