"You are quite right," he said, offering me his cigarette case. "Miss Challoner is here. After supper last night at the Carlton with Mrs. Stapleton she didn't feel very well, so Mrs. Stapleton persuaded her to come back and sleep here instead of motoring back to Newbury. She told her maid to telegraph early this morning to Sir Roland Challoner, in case he should feel anxious at Miss Challoner's not returning last night, but the maid stupidly forgot to. She is sending a telegram now. Miss Challoner is quite all right this morning, and will be down presently, but I am afraid you won't be able to see Mrs. Stapleton, as she isn't up yet." I thanked him for finding out, thinking, as I did so, that certainly he was one of the most plausible liars I had ever come across; and then for a few minutes we conversed on general topics. "You don't remember who it was told you my address?" he presently asked carelessly, flicking his cigarette ash into the grate. "I am sorry, I don't," I answered, pretending to think. "It was some days ago that somebody or other told me you lived here, or rather that you had an address here." "Oh, indeed. It's odd how people talk. By the way, how did you come to know that Mrs. Stapleton and Miss Challoner were here?" His question was interrupted by Dulcie's entering, wrapped in a great fur coat. There were dark marks under her eyes that I had never seen there before, but she seemed in quite good spirits as she came across the room and greeted me. "How in the world did you find out I was here!" she exclaimed. "It is most astonishing. Did you know that Connie had rooms here? I didn't, until last night. It was so good of her to put me up. I can't think what it was upset me so last night, but I am quite all right this morning. Connie has just telegraphed to father to explain my absence—you know how little it takes to worry him. I've got my evening dress on under this coat that Connie's lent me. She wanted to lend me one of her day dresses, but not one of them comes near fitting me." I gasped. I couldn't answer. It was bad enough to find people like Gastrell and Jasmine Gastrell and Connie Stapleton perjuring themselves in the calmest way imaginable; but that Dulcie, whom I had until now implicitly believed to be everything that was good should thus look me in the eyes and lie to me—with as much self-assurance as though she had been accustomed to practising deception all her life. A kind of haze seemed to rise before my eyes. My brain throbbed. All the blood seemed suddenly to be going out of my heart. Mechanically putting out an arm, I supported myself against the mantelpiece. "Mike! Mike! What is the matter? Are you ill? do you feel faint?" Her voice sounded a long, long way off. I heard her words as one hears words in a dream. My mouth had turned suddenly dry. I tried to speak, but could not. "Here, Berrington, drink this and you'll feel better."