It was an unusually long speech for Miles to have been guilty of, and Audrey stood looking at him in some surprise.

“Miles, you’re rather a dear, you know.  I believe you’re almost as strongly on Garth’s side as Jane Crab.”

“Is Jane?” And Herrick smiled.  “She’s a good old sport then.  Anyhow, I don’t propose to add my quota to the bill Trent’s got to pay, poor devil!”

Audrey’s face softened as she turned to go.

“One can’t help feeling pitifully sorry for him,” she admitted.  “To have had Sara—­and then to have lost her!”

There was a whimsical light in Herrick’s eyes as he answered her.

“But, at least,” he said, “he has had her, if only for a few days.”

Audrey paused with her hand upon the latch of the door.

“I imagine Garth—­asked for what he wanted!” she observed, and vanished precipitately through the doorway.

“Audrey!” Miles started up, but, by the time he reached the house door, she was already disappearing through the gateway into the road and beyond pursuit.

“She must have run!” he commented ruefully to himself as he returned to the sitting-room.

This discovery seemed to afford him food for reflection.  For a long time he sat very quietly in his chair, apparently arguing out with himself some knotty point.

Nor had his thoughts, at the moment, any connection with the recent discussion of Garth Trent’s affairs.  It was only after the Lavender Lady had returned, a little pink about the eyelids, that the recollection of the original object of Mrs. Maynard’s visit recurred to him.

Simultaneously, his brows drew together in a sudden concentration of thought, and an inarticulate exclamation escaped him.

Miss Livinia looked up from the delicate piece of cobwebby lace she was finishing.

“What did you say, dear?” she asked absently.

“I didn’t say anything,” he smiled back at her.  “I was thinking rather hard, that’s all, and just remembered something I had forgotten.”

The Lavender Lady looked a trifle mystified.

“I don’t think I quite understand, Miles dear.”

Herrick, on his way to the door, stooped to kiss her.

“Neither do I, Lavender Lady.  That’s just the devil of it,” he answered cryptically.

He passed out of the room and upstairs, presently returning with a couple of letters, held together by an elastic band, in his hand.

They smelt musty as he unfolded them; evidently they had not seen the light of day for a good many years.  But Miles seemed to find them of extraordinary interest, for he subjected the closely written sheets to a first, and second, and even a third perusal.  Then he replaced the elastic band round them and shut them away in a drawer, locking the latter carefully.

A couple of days later, Garth Trent received a note from Herrick, asking him to come and see him.