On that point he thought that she might perhaps be more candid than upon the other, if taxed, and at the first opportunity he followed her into the corner of the room where she had seated herself, in sight of the nearest card-table in the end room, on the one hand, and of the figure of Cora seated at the piano, on the other. There was a seat near her, and he stood with one knee on it, as he bent down and asked-- “Will you answer me a question truly, honestly, Rachel, a question about yourself--and--someone else?” “I can’t promise,” said she, in a low voice, with, as he thought, a quick, self-conscious glance towards Cecil Jones. From the adjoining room, where Denver and some other men were playing cards, came a reminder, in Denver’s voice, of the other man of whom he had been jealous, but whose chances Gerard now rejected, as he could not believe that Miss Davison could have given her heart to a card-sharper, who was also something worse. “I want to know whether this Jones is engaged to you?” A faint smile passed over her face, one of those flitting, quickly fading ripples of gentle merriment which were characteristic of her. “Why,” she said, “how many more people are you going to marry me to, Mr. Buckland? There was Denver Van Santen--and now--” He interrupted her with rash eagerness. “Denver Van Santen! No. Even if you could care for a card-sharper, which I own might be possible, you could not, I’m sure, care for a murderer!” Miss Davison, who was leaning back carelessly in her chair, sat up, looking deadly pale. With a commanding air, she made him sit down beside her. “What do you mean?” she asked, fixing him with a gaze which seemed to penetrate to his very soul. It was evident that, however she might try to hide the fact, she was thrown by his words into a state of keenest tension. His jealousy grew as he watched the change in her. Did she really care for this man, then, and was the tie which bound her to Cecil Jones one of business interests only? “I mean,” said he, lowering his voice, so that no one else should hear a whisper of the momentous words he had to utter, “that Denver Van Santen was the cause of the accident to Sir William’s car last week, and that he shadowed us with a revolver, with what object, unless he meant to rid himself of a person whom he looked upon as dangerous, I can’t imagine.” Miss Davison tried to laugh, but that resource she had used too often that afternoon and her voice sounded hard and her mirth artificial. “How absurd!” she cried. “Can anything be more preposterous than to accuse a person on such flimsy grounds? for of course you only suppose that you saw Denver, and Sir William only supposes it also.” He saw, however, in her eyes, as she uttered the words, that she felt by no means so certain as she pretended to be of the childlike innocence of the young poker-player. “We do more than suppose,” he said quietly; “we are both quite sure of what we saw.”