She quitted her seat, and near the end of the walk she found the same gardener that the Baronet had made use of. She beckoned the man to her, and as she slipped a coin into his hand, said to him: ‘Go to Sir Frederick Pinkerton, whom you will find in the library, and say to him that Lady Dimsdale’s answer is “Yes.”’ The man scratched his head and stared at her open-mouthed; so, for safety’s sake, she gave him the message a second time. Then he seemed to comprehend, and touching his cap, set off at a rapid pace in the direction of the house. Lady Dimsdale took the same way slowly, immersed in bitter thoughts. ‘Farewell, Oscar, farewell!’ her heart kept repeating to itself. ‘Not even when you are free, must you ever learn the truth.’ * * * * * Meanwhile, Mrs Boyd, after lunching heartily with kind, chatty Mrs Bowood to keep her company, and after arranging her toilet, had gone back to the room in which her husband had left her, and from which he had forbidden her to stir till his return. She was somewhat surprised not to find him there, but quite content to wait till he should think it well to appear. There was a comfortable-looking couch in the room, and after a hearty luncheon on a warm day, forty winks seem to follow as a natural corollary; at least that was Estelle’s view of the present state of affairs. But before settling down among the soft cushions of the couch, she went up to the glass over the chimney-piece, and taking a tiny box from her pocket, opened it, and, with the swan’s-down puff which she found therein, just dashed her cheeks with the faintest possible _soupçon_ of Circassian Bloom, and then half rubbed it off with her handkerchief.