“Ah, Mr. Buckland, I’m very pleased to see you again. Have you heard that your friend Sir William Gurdon has written a long and most handsome apology for the way he behaved last Sunday? I got it on Tuesday last, and I at once sent a copy of it to all the ladies and gentlemen who were here when he made that ill-mannered outbreak. I couldn’t send you one, because I didn’t know your address. But I’ll show you the letter itself presently.” Gerard congratulated her as well as he could, and in the meantime his eyes roamed about in search of two people: Miss Davison for one; the detective who was to be among the guests this day, for the other. Miss Davison he soon discovered. She was the only person there who appeared to be in the least changed since the previous Sunday. Pale she always was, but now she was ghastly; while the dark rings under her eyes told an eloquent tale of sleepless nights, and a peculiar haggard look about the outline of her face betrayed to his eyes, keen where she was concerned, the fact that she had been rendered uneasy and unhappy by the occurrences of the momentous day. He did not at once approach her: he was particularly anxious not to seem in a great hurry to speak to her alone, and besides, he felt very diffident as to her reception of the news he had for her. Would she take the warning quietly and disappear in time to escape the general disaster? Or would she betray him, and make use of the information he had for her in the interests of the Van Santens? Gerard could not make up his mind on this point; and he was in a state of great distress as to whether he was about to render her a great service or to render one to the American swindlers whom he dreaded to find were her accomplices. But everything must be risked for her sake. In the meantime he looked carefully about him, in the hope of discovering among those of the guests whom he did not know the detective who was to be there on the information of Sir William. The task was an easy one. There was only one strange face there, that of a man with a heavy black mustache who was, Gerard thought, unmistakably a police officer in disguise. This fact ascertained, he lost no time in approaching Miss Davison, and, after the first greetings, said to her in a low voice-- “Don’t look shocked, I beg. I have to warn you that there is a police detective here to-day. Don’t ask me how I know; but you may depend upon its being the truth.” Miss Davison bowed her head in grave silence. “I was sure of it!” she said in a low voice. CHAPTER XXI Then for a few moments there was silence. The words Miss Davison had uttered so hastily, in response to his warning that there was a detective present, Gerard could not but look upon as an admission. If all had been right at the Priory, why should she have expected to see there an agent of the police?