“You do look as if you wanted rest,” said Gerard steadily. “I am sure you work too hard. Not only at your social duties, and your designs, but--in other ways.” Miss Davison’s pale face flushed suddenly. “What other ways?” she asked quietly. “You do a good deal in the way of journalism, I think,” he said. “Do I? How do you know?” “Do you remember the night of the fête at Lord Chislehurst’s, when the king and queen were expected?” Miss Davison did not reply in words. But she changed her attitude, and sitting upright, bowed her head as a sign to him to go on. “There was a tremendous crowd outside, and I saw you there.” She raised her eyebrows incredulously. If she was surprised and disturbed, as he believed, she concealed her feelings perfectly. “You saw me--outside--in a crowd of that sort?” she said disdainfully. He nodded with confidence. “Not dressed as you are now, and not looking as you do now. You were well disguised for your purpose--of journalism--in a hat and coat which would make you laugh if you were to see them on the stage, for instance. I thought the disguise very clever, but I remembered your face too well to be mistaken.” “You were mistaken, though,” retorted Miss Davison with a forced laugh. But he stuck to his guns. “I think not,” he said gently. “I watched you for some time. I--I watched you till--till you gave something to--someone else--a man, and then disappeared.” If he had had doubts before, he had none then. Miss Davison said nothing, but she sat so still, with such a fixed look of terror and dismay upon her handsome face, that he was smitten to the heart, and felt himself a brute to have tortured her, even though the knowledge of what he had seen could not be kept to himself, and though it was the greatest kindness he could do her to confide it in the first place to her ears. It seemed quite a long time before she spoke. Then she turned to him sharply, and said in a voice which sounded hard, metallic, unlike her own-- “You have made a most curious, a most unaccountable mistake. You have left me quite dumb. I don’t know what to say.” He paused, and then asked in a low voice-- “May I tell what I saw to Lady Jennings?” “For Heaven’s sake--no,” cried she hoarsely. CHAPTER V There was a long pause when this exclamation escaped the lips of Miss Davison. She sat back, trembling and silent, staring out before her as if unconscious of the presence of Gerard Buckland, who, holding the side of the victoria with fingers which tightened as he stood, looked into the girl’s face with agony which he could not repress. For surely her exclamation was a confession! If she had no connection with the working-girl whom he had seen in the crowd on the night of the fête, why should she mind what he told Lady Jennings? Yet at his suggestion that he should speak to the old lady about what he had seen, Rachel had shown the most helpless terror.