“I—­well, mother, I—­I don’t know what to do,” the girl confessed.

“Do!  Take my advice, darling.  Think no more of the fellow.  He’s no use to you—­or to me.”

“But, mother dear—­”

“No, Dorise, no more need be said!” interrupted Lady Ranscomb severely.  “You surely would not be so idiotic as to throw in your lot with a man who is certainly a criminal.”

“A criminal!  Why do you denounce him, mother?”

“Well, he stands self-condemned.  He has been in hiding ever since that night at Monte Carlo.  If he were innocent, he would surely, for your sake, come forward and clear himself.  Are you mad, Dorise—­or are you blind?”

The girl remained silent.  Her mother’s argument was certainly a very sound one.  Had Hugh deceived her?

Her lover’s attitude was certainly that of a guilty man.  She could not disguise from herself the fact that he was fleeing from justice, and that he was unable to give an explanation why he went to the house of Mademoiselle at all.

Yvonne Ferad, the only person who could tell the truth, was a hopeless idiot because of the murderous attack.  Hence, the onus of clearing himself rested upon Hugh.

She loved him, but could she really trust him in face of the fact that he was concealed comfortably beneath the same roof as Louise Lambert?

She recalled that once, when they had met at Newquay in Cornwall over a tete-a-tete lunch, he had said, in reply to her banter, that Louise was a darling!  That he was awfully fond of her, that she had the most wonderful eyes, and that she was always alert and full of a keen sense of humour.

Such a compliment Hugh had never paid to her.  The recollection of it stung her.

She wondered what sort of woman was the person named Bond.  Then she decided that she had acted wisely in not going to Farnham.  Why should she?  If Hugh was with the girl he admired, then he might return with her.

Her only fear was lest he should be arrested.  If his place of concealment were spoken of over a West End dinner-table, then it could not be long before detectives arrested him for the affair at the Villa Amette.

On that afternoon Hugh had borrowed Mrs. Bond’s car upon a rather lame pretext, and had pulled up in the square, inartistic yard before the Bush—­the old coaching house, popular before the new road over the Hog’s Back was made, and when the coaches had to ascend that steep hill out of Guildford, now known as The Mount.  For miles the old road is now grass-grown and forms a most delightful walk, with magnificent views from the Thames Valley to the South Downs.  The days of the coaches have, alas! passed, and the new road, with its tangle of telegraph wires, is beloved by every motorist and motor-cyclist who spins westward in Surrey.

Hugh waited anxiously in the little lounge which overlooks the courtyard.  He went into the garden, and afterwards stood in impatience beneath the archway from which the street is approached.  Later, he strolled along the road over which he knew Dorise must come.  But all to no avail.