Sir George was for refusing the hill and for dodging among the trees, but our deliverer (?) held him tight. Once, in a frenzy of alarm, he did break loose, but he was promptly captured and brought back, with apologies, but firmness. It was easy to see why. He would have caught his death of cold if he had wandered over those hills all night in the rain, and what would have become of England? (I am very glad there are no Prime Ministers in America, and most of the Presidents that I recall would be as easy to run away with as a bull hippopotamus.) And then we found ourselves at a side entry of what seemed to be a colossal house. The door was partly open and a man in livery was asleep on a bench just inside the door. The hold on my arm was released. The Prime Minister, assisted by The Unknown, went up the steps and in through the door. I struggled up alone, with my lungs suddenly collapsed and yells from somewhere behind me in the darkness. I could hardly lift my feet, and yet I knew I must get up the steps and through that open door before somebody reached out from the black behind me and clutched me. It was a nightmare come to life. And then the footman caught my outstretched hand and dragged me in, the door slammed, and I sat down very quietly on the hall bench and fainted away. (One of the people in this story insists that I was _not_ left to drag myself up the steps alone, and that he took me up and put me on the bench. But he was excited, and I should know what really happened. He never even glanced at me.) VII I am sure, gentle reader--you can see what facility I am gaining; I would not have dared the "gentle reader" in Chapter I--I am sure you will think me stupid not to have understood the situation by that time. But I did not. When I came to myself the footman was standing by, very stiffly, with a glass of wine on a tray, and it was easy to see that he knew I had lost my heel and that one of my lace sleeves was gone. When I unclenched my hand and found the necklace still there, and then dropped it on the tray while I drank the wine, his jaw fell. But where he had said, "Will you have some wine, Miss?" before, now he said, "Shall I call 'Awkins, my lady?" "Don't call any one," I said wearily. "Or--I wish you would find the--the person who just came in with Sir George." And as he turned to go, looking very puzzled, "Where am I?" I asked. This really should have been said when I first roused. "At Wimberley Towers, my lady," the man answered, but he looked at me again curiously. There was loud talking going on down the hall, and, as I sat, I could make out scraps of it. A man's voice, vaguely familiar, in an even monotone, followed by a shrill, excited one, also masculine. "Berthold said there was a woman in the car, and that was what threw us off, sir. He's always seeing women."