After a short and uneasy sleep towards morning, she rose to find herself called upon to take some decisive action, and began by making an exhaustive tour of the premises, which ended in her feeling sure that the room which was used by the gamblers, probably night after night, and certainly till the early hours of the morning, must be that which was called the billiard-room. This was a long and wide apartment, built out between the house itself and the outer wall, and having, as she now noted for the first time, a door leading straight into the road. Audrey tried the inner door, found it locked, as usual, and demanded the key of the housekeeper. She was, of course, met by a point-blank refusal. At this Audrey’s tone changed. The housekeeper, a thin, dry-eyed woman, was not insolent; she only stated that she had been forbidden to open this room for anybody, by the duchess’s express desire. Audrey looked her straight in the eyes. “Well,” she said, “I can’t force you to give me the key. But, as I have reason to know that some persons got into that room during the night, I shall, if you persist in refusing, call in the police and have the lock forced.” The woman’s face grew grey with alarm. “You would not do that, Madame, without consulting--Mr.--Mr.--Mr. Johnson, surely?” she stammered. “Without consulting anybody,” replied Audrey calmly. Only for a moment did the woman hesitate; then she handed the key with a shrug of desperation to Audrey, who at once opened the door, and found herself, as she had expected, face to face with abundant evidences of the fact that it was there that the card-playing had been going on. Stray coins, soiled and torn cards, overturned chairs, a broken candlestick which looked as if it had been used as a missile, proved conclusively the uses to which the room had been put, while the billiard-table, which gave the name to it, was only a small one, six feet in length, which stood across one end of the apartment, and looked as if it had been but little used. Audrey was quite sure, to begin with, that it had not been used during her tenancy of the house, as the click of the balls is unmistakable, and could not have failed to reach her ears through the skylights with which the room was furnished instead of windows. Now she understood why Lord Clanfield had not believed her assertion that his sons had been refused the house. She could not doubt--nay, she had the evidence of her own ears to prove--that they had only gone out by the front-door, to come in again by that which led direct into this room. And with a heightened colour and a fast-beating heart she returned to the morning-room, after having returned the keys to the housekeeper in significant silence, and wrote this letter:-- “My Lord,