Then in the distance the sound of a familiar motor-horn was heard, and through the trees could be seen the glittering brass-work of a car. The baronet's head chauffeur in smart mufti was driving,--he had been caught just as he was setting out for an evening in Folkestone,--and the car darted along the drive, and gracefully took all the corners in a manner that gladdened the hearts of the anxious spectators on the terrace. A grating of wheels on the ground, a spasmodic lunge forward, and the vehicle stopped dead at the foot of the steps. An elderly gentleman descended from the car. "Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Delarayne, "it's Dr. Thackeray!" * * * * * It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park. It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning, and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the mistake he had made. In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to achieve but one object,--to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at Brineweald. The sudden return of Denis to help to find the bangle had been the opportunity. Unfortunately, Lord Henry felt that he had not reckoned sufficiently with two possibilities, each of which, in itself, was serious enough: on the one hand, Denis's return to Brineweald long before himself, and on the other, the confirmation that Vanessa and Tribe might offer to Denis's report, if Denis chose to tell. First of all, in the few seconds he had had to consider the matter, it had struck him as extremely improbable that Denis would either have the time or the inclination to tell Cleopatra direct, before he himself had had a chance of speaking to her; and, secondly, he had doubted whether Vanessa and Tribe could actually have seen him embracing Leonetta.