“Thank you very much; I am obliged to go. Good-bye, Mrs. Cottingham. You’ll write to Masterson and let me know what the answer is? I think I hear the car.” Miss Todhunter, who had embraced her friend so warmly half an hour before, parted from her with a tepid handshake; but if neither Daphne nor Mrs. Cottingham considered the visit a success, Lady Heritage seemed to derive some satisfaction from it, and Jane told herself that not only had a danger been averted, but a distinct advantage had been gained. CHAPTER XIV Jane ran straight up to her room when they got back, but she was no sooner there than it came into her mind to wonder whether she had put away the files which she had been working on just before she went into the garden. Think as she would, she could not be sure. She ran down again and went quickly along the corridor to the library. The door was unlatched. She touched the handle, pushed it a little, and stood hesitating. Lady Heritage was speaking. “It’s a satisfaction to know just where one is. Sometimes I’ve been convinced she was a fool, and then again ... well, I’ve wondered. I wondered this afternoon in the garden. That man on the headland gives one to think furiously. Who on earth could it have been?” “I ... don’t ... know.” “But I don’t believe she saw him. I don’t believe she saw anything or knew why she was frightened. She just got a start ... a shock—began to run without knowing why, and ran herself into a blind panic. She looked quite idiotic when I was questioning her.” “Oh,” thought Jane. “It’s horrible to listen at doors, but what am I to do?” What she did was to go on listening. She heard Lady Heritage’s rare laugh. “Then this afternoon—my dear Jeffrey, it would have convinced you or any one. The friend—this Daphne Todhunter—well, only a fool could have made a bosom friend of her, and, as I told you, even she had the lowest opinion of her adored Renata’s brains.” “I don’t know,” said Ember again. “You say she’s a fool, I say she’s a fool, her friend says she’s a fool, but something, some instinct in me protests.” “Womanly intuition,” said Lady Heritage, with a mocking note. There was silence; then: “These girls—were they alone together?” “No. They conducted what appeared to be a curiously emotional conversation at the other end of Mrs. Cottingham’s dreadful drawing-room, which always reminds me of a parish jumble sale.” Ember’s voice sounded suddenly much nearer, as if he had crossed the room. “Emotional? What do you mean?” he said quickly. Lady Heritage laughed again. “Mean?” she said. “Does that sort of thing mean anything?” “What sort of thing? Please, it’s important.” “Oh, hand-holding, and a tearful embrace or two. The usual accompaniments of schoolgirl _schwärmerei_.” Jane could hear that Ember was moving restlessly. Her own heart was beating. She knew very well that in Ember’s mind there was just one thought—“Suppose she has told Daphne Todhunter.”