A rush of young people greeted me as soon as I showed myself. But I was able to elude them and catch the one full glimpse I wanted of the great room beyond. It was a magnificent apartment, and so brilliantly lighted that every nook stood revealed. On a divan near the center was a lady conversing with two gentlemen. Her back was toward me, but I had no difficulty in recognizing Miss Murray. Some distance from her, but with her face also turned away, stood Dorothy. She was talking with an unmarried friend and appeared quite at ease and more than usually cheerful.
Relieved, yet sorry that I had not succeeded in catching a glimpse of their faces, I hastened back to Sinclair, who was watching me with furtive eyes from between the curtains of the window in which he had secreted himself. As I joined him a young man, who was to act as usher, sauntered from behind one of the great pillars forming a colonnade down the hall, and, crossing to where the music-room door stood invitingly open, disappeared behind it with the air of a man perfectly contented with his surroundings.
With a nervous grip Sinclair seized me by the arm.
"Was that Beaton?" he asked.
"Certainly; didn't you recognize him?"
He gave me a very strange look.
"Does the sight of him recall anything?"
"No."
"You were at the breakfast-table yesterday morning?"
"I was."