Satisfied with his inspection, Brett gave a little nod of approval. His manservant, Achille Dupont, who accompanied him wherever he went, had all a Frenchman's quick grasp of a situation, he reflected. Moreover, the man possessed the invaluable faculty of getting on well with the members of the yacht's company, so that his coming on board with his master and waiting on him exclusively failed to create any resentment. In addition to this, he was dowered with the golden gift of discretion. Achille never suffered from a misplaced curiosity concerning his master's doings. He accepted them blandly, and although Brett supposed there would be a certain amount of gossip on board the yacht concerning this night's doings, he felt serenely sure that Achille himself would preserve a strict reticence concerning anything that he might chance to observe or overhear in the performance of his duty of serving the supper. The clock had struck nine some few minutes ago, and Brett pictured the dinghy slipping over the smooth water with Ann, hooded and cloaked, sitting in the stern. He could almost visualise her young, tense-lipped face with its courageous eyes gazing ahead into the darkness. She would have need of all her courage before the evening was over. That he admitted. But he comforted himself with the reflection, that, whatever happened, she had brought it on herself. She had refused to marry him, while he was fully determined that she should be his wife. In a way, he felt distinctly resentful that her obstinacy had driven him into employing such methods as he proposed to use to-night. The door opened, and to the accompaniment of a respectful murmur of "_Mademoiselle est arrivée_" from Achille, a woman's figure, shrouded in furs and with a scarf twisted round her head, slipped past the Frenchman, and stood poised just inside the threshold as though uncertain whether to stay or go. Achille retired and closed the door noiselessly behind him, thus deciding the matter. "Ann!" cried Brett triumphantly. "I wondered--I half doubted whether you would come, after all! Let me help you," he added quickly, as the woman threw back the fur wrap she was wearing, and with a deft movement, untwisted the scarf from her hair. "It's not Ann," said a cool feminine voice, and with a swift turn of her wrist the visitor drew the swathing scarf aside and revealed the small dark head and pansy-purple eyes of the lady from the Priory. Brett fell back a pace, his face wearing an expression of such blank amazement that for a moment Cara could hardly refrain from laughing out loud. But he recovered himself with surprising quickness, and looked her up and down with characteristic coolness. "I don't think I remember inviting you for to-night," he said slowly. "No," she replied. "I've come instead of Ann. Brett, you had no right to ask her here." His eyes flashed wickedly, but he preserved his coolness. "That, I think, is my business," he responded.