"Yes," Peckover admitted; "I've spent a pleasanter five minutes than when he was playing with the highly polished popper." "Well, much more of this and I go back to plain Mr. Gage," that gentleman declared in a disgusted tone. "They talk of the fierce light that beats on royalty, but I didn't know the nobility lived in a set-piece of fire-works with occasional red-fire." "They can't all of them do it," argued Peckover. "They are all of 'em liable to it," Gage returned. "The squibs are there, only waiting for some little complication to come along and touch 'em off. It is getting on my nerves, and I'm wondering where the next little disturbance is coming from." It seemed almost in answer to his thought that, just as he had voiced it, Bisgood announced that Lady Agatha Hemyock was in the drawing-room. Theirs was a late breakfast; still the call was early. "That's where it's coming from," Peckover observed with an uneasy grin. Lady Agatha was sympathetically troubled as she shook hands with them. Her preliminary business was to ask them down to the Moat to tea that afternoon; but as the men, exchanging significant glances, gladly accepted the invitation as affording an asylum from any immediate complications connected with the Duke of Salolja, they both felt that something more was coming, and of greater moment than a message which a note would have adequately conveyed. They were not long left in doubt. "I had another object," said Lady Agatha, pursing her lips and looking unutterably important, "in paying you this unconventional visit. One has heard from various sources of the advent of Lady Ormstork to this neighbourhood. I have even been informed that the lady in question has gone so far as to call upon you, which is the reason why the Colonel thought it would be only neighbourly and friendly to give you a word of warning." "Anything wrong," Peckover asked apprehensively. His nerves had not recovered from the previous night's disturbance. Lady Agatha took a letter from her pocket with business-like deliberation. "Very wrong--or likely to be," she replied as she slowly unfolded it, "from what my friend, Lady Bosham tells me. I happened in writing to mention Lady Ormstork's name as having taken a furnished house near here, and my friend writes by return imploring me to have nothing to do with her. A most dangerous woman," she added, presumably quoting from the closely written letter. Gage and Peckover caught each other's guilty and apprehensive eyes. "She has," continued their visitor, confident in the effect she had produced, "I believe, a young person--a young lady nowadays she would be called--with her. A Miss Buffkin. A mysterious Miss Buffkin, given out as an heiress." "Isn't she an heiress?" Peckover inquired rather foolishly. Lady Agatha shrugged. "Possibly. That is a matter known only to Lady Ormstork and Miss Buffkin. But the more vital question is what are Lady Ormstork's character and intentions."