"Jenkins," she said, "it is very important that we should have the doctor here at once. Mrs. Vane--General Vane--want----" "Give your own orders, General," said Flossy abruptly. She could not lose a chance of annoying and insulting Cynthia. "H'm, ha--the doctor, my man," said the General, rather taken aback by the demand upon him--"get us the doctor as soon as you can. Tell him--tell him that Mr. Lepel's relatives are here, and no doubt he will come at once." There was a little silence in the room when Jenkins had disappeared upon his errand. The General stood, with his hands clasped behind him, looking out of a window; Mrs. Vane had sunk into a chair, in which she lay back, her graceful neck turned aside, as if she wanted to avoid the sight of Cynthia, who meanwhile stood upon the hearthrug, head bent and hands folded, waiting gravely and patiently for what she felt to be the decision on her fate. Presently Mrs. Vane moved a little, fixed her cold eyes on the motionless figure before her, and spoke in tones so low that they did not reach the General's ears. "What have you done with your father?" she asked. Cynthia raised her eyes to Mrs. Vane's face for a moment with a flash of scorn in their lustrous depths. She made no other answer. "You need not think," said Florence deliberately, "that I do not know where he has been until to-day. I know all about him." "Yes; you set your spies on him," said Cynthia, in equally low but bitter tones. "I was aware of that." "I know of his movements up to eleven o'clock this morning, and so do the police," said Mrs. Vane. "He came to you this morning--perhaps by appointment, perhaps not--how do I know?--and you drove away with him to St. Pancras Station. There you took his ticket to Liverpool--there you said good-bye. Why did you not wait to see him off? The answer is easy to read--because he never went to Liverpool at all. Did you think we were children like yourself that you could throw dust in our eyes as easily as that?" Cynthia's dilated eyes asked a question that her lips would not utter. Flossy smiled. "You want to know if he has been taken?" she said. "Not yet; but he soon will be. You should not have been seen with him if you wanted him to escape. I suppose you were not aware that the relationship was known?" No, this certainly Cynthia had not known. "You have been the means of identifying him to the police," Mrs. Vane went on, with the cruel smile still playing about her thin lips; "otherwise we should hardly have been sure that he had changed his disguise. I almost wonder that you never thought of that." Then Cynthia made a desperate attempt to stem the tide. "You are mistaken," she said--Mrs. Vane laughed softly.