“I will tell the master you are here, sir,” said Audrey decisively.

She closed the door and left him there.

Well!  Here was something to tell auntie!  Her mind was busy at once, going over all the things which he had said to her and she had said to him—­quiet-like.  “Directly I saw him I said to myself—­” Why, you could have knocked her over with a feather.  Feathers, indeed, were a perpetual menace to Audrey.

However, the immediate business was to find the master.  She walked across the hall to the library, glanced in, came back a little uncertainly, and stood in front of Cayley.

“If you please, sir,” she said in a low, respectful voice, “can you tell me where the master is?  It’s Mr. Robert called.”

“What?” said Cayley, looking up from his book.  “Who?”

Audrey repeated her question.

“I don’t know.  Isn’t he in the office?  He went up to the Temple after lunch.  I don’t think I’ve seen him since.”

“Thank you, sir.  I will go up to the Temple.”

Cayley returned to his book.

The “Temple” was a brick summer-house, in the gardens at the back of the house, about three hundred yards away.  Here Mark meditated sometimes before retiring to the “office” to put his thoughts upon paper.  The thoughts were not of any great value; moreover, they were given off at the dinner-table more often than they got on to paper, and got on to paper more often than they got into print.  But that did not prevent the master of The Red House from being a little pained when a visitor treated the Temple carelessly, as if it had been erected for the ordinary purposes of flirtation and cigarette-smoking.  There had been an occasion when two of his guests had been found playing fives in it.  Mark had said nothing at the time, save to ask with a little less than his usual point—­whether they couldn’t find anywhere else for their game, but the offenders were never asked to The Red House again.

Audrey walked slowly up to the Temple, looked in and walked slowly back.  All that walk for nothing.  Perhaps the master was upstairs in his room.  “Not well-dressed enough for the drawing-room.”  Well, now, Auntie, would you like anyone in your drawing-room with a red handkerchief round his neck and great big dusty boots, and—­listen!  One of the men shooting rabbits.  Auntie was partial to a nice rabbit, and onion sauce.  How hot it was; she wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea.  Well, one thing, Mr. Robert wasn’t staying the night; he hadn’t any luggage.  Of course Mr. Mark could lend him things; he had clothes enough for six.  She would have known him anywhere for Mr. Mark’s brother.

She came into the house.  As she passed the housekeeper’s room on her way to the hall, the door opened suddenly, and a rather frightened face looked out.

“Hallo, Aud,” said Elsie.  “It’s Audrey,” she said, turning into the room.