“We will send Nap Errol to find him,” said Mrs. Damer.

“Oh, no, thank you.  That is quite unnecessary.  Please do not trouble about me.  A few minutes more or less make little difference.”

The words came with the patience of deadly weariness.  She was still faintly smiling as she wound a scarf about Mrs. Damer’s head.

“I am quite ready, you see,” she said.  “I shall leave the moment he appears.”

“My dear Lady Carfax, you have the patience of a saint.  I am afraid Phil does not find me so long-suffering.”  Mrs. Damer bustled back into the hall.  “Are you there, Nap?  Do see if you can find Sir Giles.  Poor Lady Carfax is half-dead with cold and fit to drop with fatigue.  Go and tell him so.”

“Please do nothing of the sort,” said Lady Carfax behind her.  “No doubt he will come when he is ready.”

Nap Errol looked from one to the other with swift comprehension in his glance.  “Let me put you into your carriage first, Mrs. Damer,” he said, offering his arm.  “Your husband is busy for the moment—­some trifling matter.  He begs you will not wait for him.  I will drive him back in my motor.  I have to pass your way, you know.”

Mrs. Damer shook hands hurriedly with Lady Carfax and went with him.  There was something imperative about Nap just then.  They passed out together on to the baize-covered pavement, and Anne Carfax breathed a faint sigh of relief.

A few seconds later the Damer carriage was clattering down the street, and Nap Errol was once more by her side.

“Look here,” he said.  “Let me take you home in my motor first.  No one will know.”

She looked at him, her lips quivering a little as though they still tried to smile.  “Thank you very much,” she said.  “But—­I think not.”

“No one will ever know,” he reiterated.  “I will just set you down at your own door and go away.  Come, Lady Carfax!” His dark eyes gazed straight into her own, determined, dominating.  The high cheek-bones and long, lean jaw looked as though fashioned in iron.

“Come!” he said again.

She made a slight forward movement as if to yield, and then drew back again.  “Really, I had better wait and go with my husband,” she said.

“You had better not!” he said with emphasis.  “I have just seen him.  He is in the smoke-room.  I won’t tell you what he is like.  You probably know.  But if you are a wise woman you will leave him for Damer to look after, and come with me.”

That decided her.  She threw the hood of her cloak over her head and turned in silence to the door.

Errol paused to pull on an overcoat and then followed her on to the steps.  A large covered motor had just glided up.  He handed her into it.  “By Jove, you are cold!” he said.

She made no rejoinder.

He stepped in beside her, after a word with the chauffeur, and shut the door.

Almost instantly they were in motion, and in another moment were shooting forward swiftly down the long, ill-lighted street.