She swung lightly away from him, and moved with her floating grace of step along the drive to the carriage gate, where the car waited. The driver jumped down and opened the door for her. She sprang in, while James Polydore, panting after her, caught the chauffeur by the coat-sleeve. “I don’t think this young lady knows where she is going,” he said, confidentially. “Where did you find her?” The chauffeur stared. “She’s at our hotel,” he answered--“And I’m driving her back there.” Here Diana put her head out of the window,--her fair face radiant with smiles. “You see, it’s all right!” she said--“Don’t bother about me! You know the----Hotel looking over the Park? Well, I’m there just now, but not for long?” “No, I’m sure not for long!” thought the bewildered James Polydore. “You’ll be put in a ‘home’ for mental cases if you haven’t run away from one already!” And it was with a great sense of relief that he watched the chauffeur “winding up” and preparing to move off--the lunatic would have no chance to “bite” him, as his wife had suggested! But how beautiful she was! For the life of him he could not forbear treating her to one of his “conquering” smiles. “Good-bye, dear child!” he said. “Take care of yourself! Be quite good! I--I will come and see you at your--your hotel.” Diana laughed again. “I’m sure you will! Why, Pa dear, you won’t be able to keep away! The antique Mrs. Ross-Percival, whom you so much admire, is not ‘the’ only beautiful woman in London! _Do_ remember that! Ta-ta!” The car moved rapidly off, leaving James Polydore in a chaotic condition of mind. He was, of course, absolutely convinced that the girl who called herself his daughter Diana was the victim of a craze, but how or when she became thus obsessed was a mystery to him. He re-entered his house to struggle with the wordy reproaches of his better-half, and to talk the matter over privately with the “companion secretary,” Lucy Preston, whose attention he thought more safely assured by a _tête-à-tête_, which apparently obliged him to put his arm round her waist and indulge in sundry other agreeable endearments. But the exquisite beauty of the “escaped lunatic” haunted him, and he made up his mind to see her again at all costs, mad or sane, and make searching inquiries concerning her.