The women left the room in a little group, their figures merging almost into indistinctness as they passed out of the lighted zone. David's eyes followed Letitia until she had disappeared. Then he was conscious that a servant was standing with a note on a salver by his side. "This has been sent down from Broomleys, sir," the man explained. David took it and felt a sudden sinking of the heart. The envelope was thin, square and of common type, the writing was painstaking but irregular. There was a smudge on one corner, a blot on another. David glanced at the Marquis, who nodded and immediately commenced a conversation with Grantham. He tore open his message and read it: "The time has arrived. I wait for you here." He crushed the half-sheet of notepaper in his fingers and then dropped it into his pocket. "There is no answer," he told the servant. CHAPTER XXXII Grantham, who had been unusually silent throughout the service of dinner, slipped away from the room a few minutes before the other men. He found Letitia arranging a bridge table, and drew her a little on one side. "Letitia," he said, "I am annoyed." "My dear Charles," she replied, "was anything ever more obvious!" "You perhaps do not realise," he continued, "that you are the cause." She shrugged her shoulders. "Well?" "In the first place," he complained, "you are not wearing my ring." "I thought I told you," she reminded him, "that I would prefer not to until we formally announced our engagement." "Why on earth shouldn't we do that at once--this evening?" he suggested. "I can see no reason for delay." "I, on the other hand, have a fancy to wait," she replied carelessly, "at least until your visit here is over. "Your hesitation is scarcely flattering," he remarked with some irritation. "Is there anything else you wish to say?" she enquired. "I really must get out those bridge markers." He began to show signs of temper. Watching him closely for the first time, Letitia decided that he had most unpleasant-looking eyes. "I should like to know the subject of your conversation with that Thain fellow when I came in this evening," he demanded. "I am sorry," she said coolly. "We were speaking upon a private subject." The anger in his eyes became more evident. "Private subject? You mean to say that you have secrets with a fellow like that?" "A fellow like that?" she repeated. "You don't like Mr. Thain, then?" "Like him? I don't like him or dislike him. I think he ought to be very flattered to be here at all--and you are the last person in the world, Letitia, I should have expected to find talking in whispers with him, with your heads only a few inches apart. I feel quite justified in asking what that confidence indicated." Letitia smiled sweetly but dangerously. "And I feel quite justified," she retorted, "in refusing to answer that or any similar question. Are you going to play bridge, Charlie?"