In a few minutes I was laughing at myself, not quite naturally, perhaps, but only I could know that. I was getting to be a morbid, nervous person. It was the solitude! I must get away from it all before long. Fate had been playing strange tricks with me. Life, which a few months ago had been a cold and barren thing, was suddenly pressed to my lips, a fantastic, intoxicating mixture. I had drawn enough poison into my veins. I would have no more. I swore it. * * * * * I tried to leave the castle unnoticed, but the place was alive with servants. One of them hurried up to me as I tried to reach my hat and coat. "Her ladyship desired me to say that she was in the billiard-room, sir," he announced. "Will you tell Lady Angela--" and then I stopped. The door of the billiard-room was open, and Lady Angela stood there, the outline of her figure sharply defined against a flood of light. She had a cue in her hand, and she looked across at me. "You are a long time, Mr. Ducaine. I am waiting for you to give me a lesson at billiards." I crossed the hall to her side. "I thought that as Lord Blenavon had gone out--" She shrugged her shoulders. "That you would evade your duty, which is clearly to stay and entertain your hostess." She closed the door and glanced at me curiously. "What has happened to you?" she asked. "You look as though you had been with ghosts." "Is it so impossible?" I asked, moving a little nearer to the huge log fire. "What company is more terrifying than the company of our dead thoughts and dead hopes and dead memories?" "Really, I am afraid that Blenavon must have been a very depressing companion!" she said, leaning her elbow upon the broad mantelpiece. It was absurd! I tried to shake myself free from the miseries of the last hour. "I am afraid it must have been the other way," I said, "for your brother has gone out." "Yes," she said quietly, "he has gone to that woman at Braster Grange. I wish I knew what brought her into this part of the country." I looked round at the billiard-table. "Did you mean that you would like a game?" I asked. "I am rather out of practice, but I used to fancy myself a little." "I have no doubt," she answered, sinking into a low chair, "that you are an excellent player, but I am willing to take it for granted. I do not wish to play billiards. Draw that chair up to the fire and talk to me." It was of all things what I wished to avoid that night. But there was no escape. I obeyed her. "What your brother has told me is, I presume, no secret," I said. "I am to wish you happiness, am I not?" She looked up at me in quick surprise. "Did Blenavon tell you--" "That you had promised to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray. Yes." "That is very strange," she said thoughtfully. "Blenavon is not as a rule needlessly communicative, and at present it is almost a secret." "Nevertheless," I said, turning slowly towards her, "I presume that it is true."