After dinner Ralph deserted to his club, and the three women drew round the fire, talking desultorily, as women will, and avoiding as though by common consent matters that touched them too nearly.  Presently the maid, came noiselessly into the firelit room.

“A gentleman has called to see Miss Davenant,” she said, addressing her mistress.

Nan’s heart missed a beat.  It was Peter—­she was sure of it—­Peter, who had come back to her!  In the long watches of the night he had found out that they could not part . . . not like this . . . never to see each other any more!  It was madness.  And he had come to tell her so.  The agony of the interminable night had been his as well as hers.

“Did he give any name?” Her violet eyes were almost black with excitement.

“No, miss.  He is in the sitting-room.”

Slowly Nan made her way across the hall, one hand pressed against her breast to still the painful throbbing of her heart.  Outside the room she hesitated a moment; then, with a quick indrawing of her breath, she opened the door and went in.

“Roger!”

She shrank back and stood gazing at him dumbly, silent with the shock of sudden and undreamed-of disappointment.  She had been so sure, so sure that it was Peter!  And yet, jerked suddenly back to the reality of things, she almost smiled at her own certainty.  Peter was too strong a man to renounce and then retract his renunciation twenty-four hours later.

Trenby, who had been standing staring into the fire, turned at the sound of her entrance.  He looked dog-tired, and his eyes were sunken as though sleep had not visited them recently.  At the sight of her a momentary expression of what seemed to be unutterable relief flashed across his face, then vanished, leaving him with bent brows and his under-jaw thrust out a little.

“Roger!” repeated Nan in astonishment.

“Yes,” he replied gruffly.  “Are you surprised to see me?”

“Certainly I am.  Why have you come?  Why have you followed me here?”

“I’ve come to take you back,” he said arrogantly.

Her spirit rose in instant revolt.

“You might have saved yourself the trouble,” she flashed back angrily.  “I’m not coming.  I’ll return when I’ve finished my visit to Penelope.”

“You’ll come back with me now—­to-night,” he replied doggedly.  “We can catch the night mail and I’ve a car waiting below.”

“Then it can wait!  Good heavens, Roger!  D’you think I’ll submit to be made a perfect fool of—­fetched back like a child?”

He took a step towards her.

“And do you think that I’ll submit to be made a fool of?” he asked in a voice of intense anger.  “To be made a fool of by your rushing away from my house in my absence—­to have the servants gossiping—­not to know what has become of you—­”

“I left a note for you,” she interrupted.  “And you didn’t believe what I told you in it.”