“That is Isabel Worth,” Lady Anselman replied. “She is the daughter of Sir Meyville Worth, the great scientist. I am afraid she has rather a dull time, poor girl. Her father lives in an out-of-the-way village of Norfolk, spends all his time trying to discover things, and forgets that he has a daughter at all. She has been in London for a few days with an aunt, but I don’t believe that the old lady is able to do much for her.” “Ronnie seems to be making the running all right,” her neighbour observed. “I asked him specially to look after her,” Lady Anselman confided, “and Ronnie is always such a dear at doing what he is told.” Major Harrison leaned across the table towards them. “Didn’t I hear you mention Thomson’s name just now?” he inquired. “I saw him the other day in Boulogne. Awful swell he was about something, too. A destroyer brought him across, and a Government motor-car was waiting at the quay to rush him up to the Front. We all thought at Boulogne that royalty was coming, at least.” There was a slight frown on Granet’s forehead. He glanced half unconsciously towards Geraldine. “Mysterious sort of fellow, Thomson,” Major Harrison continued, in blissful ignorance of the peculiar significance of his words. “You see him in Paris one day, you hear of him at the furthermost point of the French lines immediately afterwards, he reports at headquarters within a few hours, and you meet him slipping out of a back door of the War Office, a day or two later.” “Inspector of Field Hospitals is a post which I think must have been created for him,” Colonel Grey remarked. “He’s an impenetrable sort of chap.” “Was Major Thomson going or returning from France when you saw him last?” Geraldine asked, looking across the table. “Coming back. When we left Boulogne, the destroyer which brought him over was waiting in the harbour. It passed us in mid-Channel, doing about thirty knots to our eighteen. Prince Cyril was rather sick. He was bringing dispatches but no one seemed to have thought of providing a destroyer for him.” “After all,” Lady Anselman murmured, “there is nothing very much more important than our hospitals.” The conversation drifted away from Thomson. Granet was making himself very agreeable indeed to Isabel Worth. There was a little more colour in her cheeks than at the commencement of luncheon, and her manner had become more animated. “Tell me about the village where you live?” he inquired--“Market Burnham, isn’t it?” “When we first went there,” she replied, “I thought that it was simply Paradise. That was four years ago, though, and I scarcely counted upon spending the winters there.” “You find it lovely, then.” She shivered a little, half closing her eyes as though to shut out some unpleasant memory.