Lights were in most of the windows, as though a party were in progress. Preston rang the bell. It was answered at once by a maid who had answered it in the morning, and before Preston had time to speak the maid asked us if we would come in. This time she showed us into a room a good deal larger than the one in which I had been interviewed by Gastrell in the morning. Very beautifully furnished, on all sides what is termed the "feminine touch" was noticeable, and among a number of framed photographs on one of the tables I recognized portraits of well-known Society people, several with autograph signatures, and one or two with affectionate inscriptions. I wondered to whom they had been presented, and to whom the affectionate inscriptions were addressed. We waited a few minutes, wondering what would happen next, and who would come in to see us, for the maid had not even asked our names, though I saw that she had recognized me. For a moment it occurred to me that we ought to have changed into evening clothes, and I was about to tell Preston so when the door opened and Jasmine Gastrell entered, accompanied, to my amazement, by Dulcie Challoner. I think even Preston was taken aback—and it took a great deal to astonish Preston. Osborne, I could see, was dumbfounded. Jasmine Gastrell was the first to speak, and she addressed me without looking either at Osborne or Preston. "Good evening, Mr. Berrington," she said, with one of those wonderful smiles of hers which seemed entirely to transform her expression; "this is an unexpected pleasure." How strangely different she now looked from the way she had looked at me in Cumberland Place when, disguised as Sir Aubrey Belston, I had pretended to read her past life! She turned to Jack, and, raising her eye-brows as though she had only that instant recognized him, "Why," she exclaimed, "it's Mr. Osborne! I had no idea we were to have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night—had you, Dulcie?" Dulcie, who was standing by quite unconcernedly, turned at once to me without answering Mrs. Gastrell's question. "Dear old Mike," she said, "how delightful of you to have come. I do hope you have entirely recovered. You looked so ill when you saw me off at Paddington this morning that I felt anxious about you all the way home. What was the matter with you? Have you any idea?" I was so staggered, first at finding her at this house again, and then at her addressing me in the calm way she did, that for some moments I could not answer. Jack and Preston, now in conversation with Jasmine Gastrell, did not notice my hesitation. At last, collecting my scattered thoughts, I answered: "I am quite well, Dulcie. There was nothing really much amiss with me this morning—I thought you knew that." I stopped abruptly. What else could I say? Under the circumstances I could not well speak about the telegram, and say why we had arrived in this way at such an unusual hour.