"Our dance, I think, Miss St Quentin," said Major Frost, when, after searching some time for Madelene, he discovered her at last in the tea-room. "The second polka it is," and as Madelene acquiesced, "I have been dancing with such a wonderfully pretty little creature," he went on, "a Miss Wyndham, or Winton, I am not quite sure of the name. A perfect stranger, staying at some house in the neighbourhood they say. I must point her out to you." "I wonder who she can be?" Miss St Quentin replied. "Mrs Belvoir did not know of any particularly pretty girl coming--no stranger, I mean." "But she is a _very_ particularly pretty girl; I know you will agree with me. If you don't mind we'll go into the other room and I will point her out to you. She is dancing with Cheynes, I think." Madelene felt but mildly interested in the object of her partner's enthusiasm, but she made no difficulty. The second room was very crowded. They danced for a few minutes and then stopped. "It is too full, really," said Major Frost. Then suddenly he gave a little exclamation. "There she is," he said, and Madelene looked where he directed. It was her turn to start and exclaim. "What is it?" asked her partner in surprise. Madelene had recovered herself. "Nothing," she said, "nothing except the most--the _most_ extraordinary resemblance. It is not very pleasant here," she went on, "suppose we go back to the other room. I want to speak to my sister Ermine; she is in there." Major Frost was too polite to object, but he was rather disappointed. "So you don't admire the stranger?" he said. "On the contrary--I could only glance at her, but I could see that she is very lovely, as you said. I wonder if my cousin, Sir Philip Cheynes, knows who she is?" Just then she caught sight of Ermine. She was fortunately not dancing. Madelene made a sign to her. "Ermine," she said in a low voice, "I am perfectly bewildered. Do you know I do believe Ella is here?" "_Ella_?" Ermine repeated. "Yes--dancing in the other room with Philip. If it is not she, I never saw such a likeness--_never_." "But," said Ermine, looking dazed, "if she is dancing with Philip, he would know, he would tell us." "_He_ may not know who she is," said Madelene impatiently, for once grasping the situation more rapidly than her sister. "He has never seen her. And if it is she, she has not come in her own name. Major Frost said she was a Miss _Wyndham_." Ermine looked relieved. "Then it can't be she," she said. "She would never do such a thing. Knowing too that we were to be here--it would have been perfectly absurd." But Miss St Quentin still looked dissatisfied.