“Surely.  But my little feathered children, dear lady, are only too like other children.  They have their days of perversity, and this morning was one of them.  My wife came in as I was putting them back in their cage, and said she had left you going out alone for a walk.  You told her so, did you not?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, Miss Halcombe, the pleasure of accompanying you was too great a temptation for me to resist.  At my age there is no harm in confessing so much as that, is there?  I seized my hat, and set off to offer myself as your escort.  Even so fat an old man as Fosco is surely better than no escort at all?  I took the wrong path—­I came back in despair, and here I am, arrived (may I say it?) at the height of my wishes.”

He talked on in this complimentary strain with a fluency which left me no exertion to make beyond the effort of maintaining my composure.  He never referred in the most distant manner to what he had seen in the lane, or to the letter which I still had in my hand.  This ominous discretion helped to convince me that he must have surprised, by the most dishonourable means, the secret of my application in Laura’s interest to the lawyer; and that, having now assured himself of the private manner in which I had received the answer, he had discovered enough to suit his purposes, and was only bent on trying to quiet the suspicions which he knew he must have aroused in my mind.  I was wise enough, under these circumstances, not to attempt to deceive him by plausible explanations, and woman enough, notwithstanding my dread of him, to feel as if my hand was tainted by resting on his arm.

On the drive in front of the house we met the dog-cart being taken round to the stables.  Sir Percival had just returned.  He came out to meet us at the house-door.  Whatever other results his journey might have had, it had not ended in softening his savage temper.

“Oh! here are two of you come back,” he said, with a lowering face.  “What is the meaning of the house being deserted in this way?  Where is Lady Glyde?”

I told him of the loss of the brooch, and said that Laura had gone into the plantation to look for it.

“Brooch or no brooch,” he growled sulkily, “I recommend her not to forget her appointment in the library this afternoon.  I shall expect to see her in half an hour.”

I took my hand from the Count’s arm, and slowly ascended the steps.  He honoured me with one of his magnificent bows, and then addressed himself gaily to the scowling master of the house.

“Tell me, Percival,” he said, “have you had a pleasant drive?  And has your pretty shining Brown Molly come back at all tired?”

“Brown Molly be hanged—­and the drive too!  I want my lunch.”

“And I want five minutes’ talk with you, Percival, first,” returned the Count.  “Five minutes’ talk, my friend, here on the grass.”

“What about?”