Here indeed was a drama. Four more astonished young people it would have been impossible to conceive. For a moment Everard seemed as if he were going to bolt, but Carmel, whose quick mind instantly grasped the situation, motioned him into the empty motor-shed behind, and, following with Lilias and Dulcie, partly closed the door. "So you're Everard, are you?" she said, looking at him hard. "Well, to tell you the truth, I never thought your name was really Johnson! I told Sheila I was sure you were a gentleman. Why have you been masquerading like this? Why don't you go home to the Chase?" "Oh, _do_ come home, Everard!" echoed Lilias entreatingly. The ex-chauffeur shook his head. He was still almost too covered with confusion to admit of speech. "I didn't expect to meet you girls," he said at last. "The best thing you can do is just to forget me, and leave me where I am. I shall _never_ go back to the Chase! That point I've quite decided." "But we want you there," said Carmel gently. "You!" Everard looked frankly puzzled. "Oh, Everard!" burst out Dulcie. "You don't understand! You ran away and never waited to hear anything, and we couldn't write to you, because you sent no address. You thought Grandfather had left the property to a boy cousin--Leslie!" "Well, didn't he?" "Yes, and no! There is no boy cousin. This is Leslie--only she's called Carmel--the heiress of Cheverley Chase!" "You!" exclaimed Everard again, gazing at Carmel. "Don't call me 'the heiress,' Dulcie," protested Carmel. "You know I've said from the very first that I don't intend to take the Chase away from you all. It's yours every bit as much as mine, and more so, because my own real home is in Sicily, and I hope to go back there some day. Everard, will you make friends with me on that understanding, and shake hands? I don't want to turn anybody out of the Chase." Carmel held out a slim little hand, and Everard accepted it delicately, as if it had been that of a princess. "I'm still stunned," he remarked. "To think I should have been driving you all this time, and not have known you were Leslie Ingleton! I never chanced to hear your surname. I thought you were Mrs. Rogers' niece." "And so I am!" laughed Carmel. "At least she's my step-aunt, at any rate. Isn't it a regular _Comedy of Errors_?" "Everard," put in Lilias, "why did you turn chauffeur? We thought you had run away to sea!" "I meant to," answered her brother bitterly, "but when it came to the point of getting employment, I found the only thing I could earn a living at was driving a car. I don't know that I even do that very decently, but at any rate I'm self-supporting. You'd better leave me where I am! It's all I'm good for!"