Coming to a knoll of rising ground, she passed it and waited on the other side. In a few minutes the man she had descried in the park came into full view. And she recognised one of the footmen in the service of the Duchess de Vicenza, a man with a clever face and watchful, cunning eyes, whose duty it was to open the door for arriving guests. “Barnard!” ejaculated she, under her breath. It was evident to her that the man had been following her, and she guessed that he must have been in pursuit from the time she left “The Briars” in the morning. He pretended not to see her, but from the slight change of countenance which she noticed, she was convinced, not only that he was fulfilling an allotted duty, but that he was infinitely vexed at being seen, and that he guessed that he was found out. She let him go past, and he was much too astute, now that he had once been caught, to betray himself further by looking round. He disappeared from sight before she moved from the spot where she had taken up her stand, and she saw no more of him till she reached “The Briars”; but she had shrewd suspicions that, though unseen, he was not far away. This incident filled her with fresh misgivings to add to the vexations and griefs from which she was already suffering. She was sure that the man would never have set out to follow her on his own responsibility; he must be fulfilling orders which had been given him. By whom, then, were those orders given? Surely not by the old duchess, whose only care was understood to be that her house and grounds should be kept in proper order. Who, then, was it that had set him to play the spy upon her? And once more, as had happened to her so often previously, a sudden uncomfortable sensation, as of being a puppet in unseen hands, a tool in the employ of some powerful organisation, seized her and made her shudder. If only she could break away from the strange, invisible but strong ties that seemed to bind her to a position she loathed, to hold her in a course which was, she felt, suicidal to her self-respect, and to her hopes of restored happiness with her husband! And then the poor creature realised, as she had never done before, that to break these ties abruptly would bring her no nearer to Gerard, no nearer to his uncle’s regard, while it would bring upon her the blame of her one woman friend, Mrs. Webster, and certainly the disapproval and resentment of the one man who had done the most to help her--Mr. Candover. It seemed to her fortunate that, when she reached “The Briars,” only just in time for a late and hurried dinner, she found Mr. Candover himself there to see her. He had come, he said, to submit to her certain notions of Mademoiselle Laure’s concerning the winter campaign. The Frenchwoman was still in Paris, but she had made extensive purchases of models, and wanted the approval of her nominal chief for certain others. Audrey, however, was tired, impatient, petulant.