“Get him away quick!” screamed the countess, as a patter of feet came along the corridor. “I can say it was an accident.” “Don’t touch him!” A girl, almost as great a scarecrow as the panting Selwyn, was leaning over the balcony. “You can tell them what you like, but you can’t tell them anything they’ll believe after they’ve heard me!” The door was pushed open at that moment, and a man half-dressed came running in, and stopped dead, gaping at the scene that met his eyes. Almost immediately the doorway was filled with dishevelled men and women. “Is there any trouble, my lady?” “None,” she said sharply, and pointed to the door. “Wait outside.” She looked up at the girl in the gallery. “I think you would be well advised to ask my son to change his plans,” she said, in the same calm, even voice which Selwyn knew so well. “The matter can be adjusted to-morrow. Selwyn, go back to your friend and take this lady with you.” Mrs. Pinder was sitting on a chair, her frail frame shaking convulsively, while Selwyn strove to comfort her. At Lady Moron’s words she stood up, and, with the man’s arm about her, passed into the crowded corridor, and in a few seconds Lizzy Smith had joined them. Chapter Thirty-six Leonora, Countess of Moron, paced her long dressing-room, her hands behind her, a calm, speculative woman, for emotion did not belong to her. Chesney Praye and the doctor she had left in the music-room, and through the windows that overlooked the stone porch at the front of the house she had, a few minutes before, seen the car pass which carried Mary Pinder to happiness and freedom. Lady Moron felt no resentment against any save the weakling son she had hated from his birth. There was still a hope that the wheel would turn by some miracle in her favour. All she had played for, all she had won, was gone. It was the hour of reparation and judgment, not yet for her the hour of penitence. Opening a little safe that was set in the wall, concealed by a silver barometer, she took out a tiny box and shook on to the table a folded sheet of newspaper and a key. This she put into her bag. From the back of the safe she pulled to view a small automatic pistol, and, jerking back the cover to assure herself that it was loaded, fixed the safety catch. This too went into the bag. Then she rang the bell, and her scared maid answered after a long interval. “Tell Henry that I wish the Rolls to be at the door in ten minutes,” she said, and at the end of that time, with her cloak wrapped about her shoulders, she stepped into the car, pausing only to give directions. “Charlotte Street,” she said, and gave the number. She turned over in her mind the events of the past few weeks, striving to discover the key flaw of her plan. Some force had been working against her. Dorn was the instrument, but behind that was a power the identity of which she could not imagine.