"My dear lady," Stamfordham said, "I will engage to eat every one of them that you have baked, I can't say more. And in the meantime I am bound on a very foolish errand. I have sworn to go and have my fortune told," and as Mrs. Samuels's eye, with a careless and ingenuous air, rested upon Lady Adela's name above the tent, she smiled inwardly at the thought that what that astute lady might possibly prophesy would also perhaps come true if, as well as prophesying, she eventually brought her intelligence to bear upon its accomplishment. "Wait one moment," Pateley said, almost nervously, to Rachel. "There is Stamfordham, he is coming this way," and as Stamfordham drew near the door of the tent Pateley accosted him. Lady Adela, it may be presumed, had some occult means of discovering from inside who was drawing near her fateful quarters, or else she had the simpler methods more usually employed by mortals, of looking to see. At all events, as Stamfordham came towards her enclosure, she appeared on the threshold and winningly lifted the mysterious curtain, burlesquing a low curtsey in reply to Stamfordham's bow. "Lord Stamfordham!" Pateley said hurriedly. Stamfordham, in some surprise, looked round. He had been seeing Pateley on and off during the day. Why did he accost him in this way? But the urgent note in his voice arrested his attention. Then, as he looked up, he saw an anxious pale-faced, girlish figure standing by Pateley, looking at him with large brown eyes filled with indescribable anxiety. It was a face that he knew, that he had seen somewhere. Who was it? For one puzzled moment he tried to remember. Pateley took the bull by the horns. "Lord Stamfordham," he said, "Mrs. Rendel wants to speak to you." Mrs. Rendel! Of course it was Mrs. Rendel. He had last seen her that day at Cosmo Place. Again a wave of indignation rushed over him. Rachel advanced desperately, looking as though she were going to speak. Stamfordham, involuntarily looking round him at the crowd of observers and listeners, said quickly in a low voice, "I am very sorry, it is no good. It is impossible." And then to Pateley, "It is no good, I can't do anything. You must tell her so," and he passed through the curtain which Lady Adela let drop behind him. Rachel looked at Pateley, then to his amazement and also to his involuntary admiration she lifted the curtain and passed in too. The two people inside stood aghast at her appearance. She had followed so quickly upon Stamfordham's steps that he was still standing looking round him at his strange surroundings, Lady Adela facing him with a smile of welcome. The apparatus of the fortune-teller apparently consisted in certain cabalistic properties--wands, dials with signs upon them, and the like--arranged round a table. Stamfordham spoke first. He was absolutely convinced that Rachel had come to appeal to him for mercy, and was as absolutely clear that it was an appeal to which he could not listen.