But Andria, for once, was wearied out. It was no more than eight o’clock and she knew Raimond never faced existence till eleven. It seemed safe to sleep, and sleep she must, or she could not think or act. If Salome came in softly and darkened the room it was without an idea of the mischief she was doing, nor how Andria Erle would wake. Beryl, with a strange color in her cheeks, a strange brightness in her tawny eyes, was freshly dressed and out even as Andria closed her eyes. From pure humiliation she had put that thin, sealed packet in her pocket, but she was not thinking of it now. Up and down the garden she stepped with a quiet fierceness that might have been learned from the jaguars she played with. There was no sign of the crazy old man, let her call and search as she would; no sign of Heriot, and her heart grew full of fear. Yet there seemed little cause for terror. If she had thought to see Egerton and his son come hurrying up from the yacht to carry her off she was mistaken. Neither of them appeared. She wondered wretchedly why Heriot had left her. Surely not because they said she had money; it meant nothing to her, instinct told her little to Heriot. Why did he not come back? She was afraid of these two men who had come with lies. Why should Erceldonne call himself Egerton to a girl to whom neither name meant anything? It came over her sharply that an obscure Mr. Egerton might leave England unobserved in a yacht, while Lord Erceldonne’s departure would have been chronicled in all the papers. “Whatever he means to do with me, he’ll do it secretly,” she thought, trembling. “But oh, if I could only hear the cats scream! I must just wait. Only wait.” But though she waited till the sun rose high and the hours passed at noon, she was waiting still. And it was so that Raimond Erle came up from the shore and saw her; standing straight and tall in the blazing sun among the gorgeous flowers; young, lithe, magnificent with her dusky hair and her golden eyes, and that strange color on her cheeks; a woman any man might covet. And for the first time he cared nothing for the thing he had done. Every bit of color went from her face as she saw who it was, though she had known the step was not Heriot’s. “Well,” she said defiantly, “what do you want?” “Only to say good morning. You’re not going to run away again, are you?” for she had moved restlessly under his eyes. “I don’t want to run away. Why should I?” she replied, with a slow glance of dislike she had not known the trick of yesterday. “I want to talk. When is--Mr. Egerton--going to take us away?” “To-day, if you like. But don’t talk here, it’s too scorching. Come into the house.” There was nothing but his own comfort in the suggestion, but his glance said it was hers. The girl shaded her eyes and looked once round the empty garden, the stirless noontide woods. There was not a soul.