“Ah! you and yours are safe now. You are in the backwater—you and Orlay—quietly moored beneath the trees.”

“Finally,” continued Lady Orlay, without heeding the interruption, “you come to me with a light in your eye which I have seen there only once or twice during nearly fifty years. It means war, or something very like it—the Vultures.”

She gave a little shiver as she looked round the room. After a short silence Deulin rose suddenly and held out his hand.

“Good-bye,” he said. “You are too discerning. Good-bye.”

“You are going—?”

“Away,” he answered, with a wave of the hand descriptive of space. “I must go and pack my trunks.”

Lady Orlay had not moved when Mr. Mangles came up to say good-night. Miss Julia P. Mangles bowed in a manner which she considered impressive and the world thought ponderous. Netty Cahere murmured a few timid words of thanks.

“We shall hope to see you again,” said Lady Orlay to Mr. Mangles.

“'Fraid not,” he answered; “we're going to travel on the Continent.”

“When do you start?” asked her ladyship.