"Yes," he replied gruffly. "Are you surprised to see me?" "Certainly I am. Why have you come? Why have you followed me here?" "I've come to take you back," he said arrogantly. Her spirit rose in instant revolt. "You might have saved yourself the trouble," she flashed back angrily. "I'm not coming. I'll return when I've finished my visit to Penelope." "You'll come back with me now--to-night," he replied doggedly. "We can catch the night mail and I've a car waiting below." "Then it can wait! Good heavens, Roger! D'you think I'll submit to be made a perfect fool of--fetched back like a child?" He took a step towards her. "And do you think that _I'll_ submit to be made a fool of?" he asked in a voice of intense anger. "To be made a fool of by your rushing away from my house in my absence--to have the servants gossiping--not to know what has become of you--" "I left a note for you," she interrupted. "And you didn't believe what I told you in it." "No," he acknowledged. "I didn't. I was afraid . . . Good God, Nan!" he broke out with sudden passion. "Haven't you any idea of what I've been through this last forty-eight hours? . . . It's been hell!" She looked at him as though amazed. "I don't understand," she said impatiently. "Please explain." "Explain? Can't you understand?" His face darkened. "You said you couldn't marry me--you asked me to release you! And then--after that!--I come home to find you gone--gone with no word of explanation, and the whole household buzzing with the story that you've run away! I waited for a letter from you, and none came. Then I wired--to safeguard you I wired from Exeter. No answer! What was I to think? . . . What _could_ I think but that you'd gone? Gone to some other man!" "Do you suppose if I'd left you for someone else I should have been afraid to tell you? That I should have written an idiotic note like that? . . . How dared you wire to Penelope? It was abominable of you!" "Why didn't she reply? I thought they must be away--" "That clinched matters in your mind, I suppose?" she said contemptuously. "But it's quite simple. Penelope didn't wire because I wouldn't let her." He was silent. It was quite true that since Nan's disappearance from Trenby Hall he had been through untold agony of mind. The possibility that she might have left him altogether in a wild fit of temper had not seemed to him at all outside the bounds of probability. And it was equally true that when another day had elapsed without bringing further news of her, he had become a prey to the increasing atmosphere of suspicion which, thanks to the gossip that always gathers in the servants' hall, had even spread to the village. Nor had either his mother or cousin made the least attempt to stem his rising anger. Far from it. Lady Gertrude had expressed her opinion with a conciseness that was entirely characteristic.