It happened that he did see his sweetheart during the week. On the Wednesday morning he had to carry out some tests of wireless telephony at one of his Company’s experimental stations at Esher. He was testing a newly-invented thermionic valve, and during the morning he got into communication with Aberdeen and Rotterdam and was gratified to learn they reported his speech and gramophone music as strong and clear. He lunched at the _Bear Hotel_, and a happy thought struck him. He would pay a surprise visit to Effington. So he drove away down the Portsmouth Road, passing through Guildford and over the Hog’s Back, and early in the afternoon swung into the big lodge gates of Effington. His unexpected visit was a most delightful surprise to Gloria. He would remain to tea, of course; and Mrs. Barnard, who was as hospitable as her brother, insisted upon his stopping to dinner. She regretted that Stormont would be absent, as he had motored to London to a directors’ meeting, and would not be back till late. Mrs. Barnard served them tea from the old silver pot in the great oak-panelled hall where high stained-glass windows bore the _rose-en-soleil_ badge of the dead and gone Sedgemeres. Duncan, the white-haired, grave-faced butler who never permitted himself the luxury of a smile, except when some guest bestowed upon him a more than usually generous tip, officiated with his customary dignity, handing round the cake-basket of pierced Georgian silver. Duncan had served the greater part of his life in noble families. Stormont, on the look-out for a dignified major-domo, had tempted him from his last place by the offer of a salary about double what he was getting. Duncan, in a way, had fallen from his high estate in accepting service under a man about whom nobody seemed to know very much. But, like the mercenaries of old, he was content to enlist under any banner where the pay was good. In the waning light, the big, high-pitched hall looked ghostly and cavernous, with its floor of polished oak over which high-born dames of the days of Charles the Second had danced merrily. There was the great stone fireplace with the wrought-iron fire-back, bearing upon it the date of 1621. There were the Caroline day-bed with spindle legs and fragile canework, the high carved arm-chairs upholstered in faded crimson, and the big oak gate table, loaded with game books, and visitors’ books mixed with modern novels. Around, upon the dark panelled walls, hung several portraits of women and men in wigs, one being a portrait by Kneller of Hugh, sixth Earl of Sedgemere, and another by Reynolds of Anne, wife of the great Lord Sedgemere who had fought in the Peninsular War. While they gossiped and sipped their tea, the sun slanted across the oak flooring, tinted by the antique escutcheons in the long coloured glass windows of the lofty hall. At dinner Lydon casually referred to Miss Mayhew. Had they heard anything of her since he had met her at luncheon?