They went back up the winding glen, and as they went Lord Saltash talked, superbly at his ease, of the doings of the past few weeks, "since you and that naughty Lady Jo dropped out," as he expressed it to Juliet. He had just recently been to Paris, had motored across France, had just returned by sea from Bordeaux in his yacht, the Night Moth.

"Landed to-day—forgot this unspeakable flower-show—had to put in to get her cleaned up for Cowes—though it's quite possible I shan't go near Cowes when all's said and done. She's quite seaworthy, warranted not to kick in a gale. If anyone wanted her for a cruise—she's about the best thing going."

They reached the shrubbery to be nearly deafened by the band.

"Come through the gardens!" said Saltash, with a shudder. "We must get out of this somehow."

"But my people!" objected Juliet.

"Oh, Mr. Green will go and find them, won't you, Mr. Green?" Saltash turned a disarming smile upon him.

But Green looked straight back without a smile. "Miss Moore is under my escort," he observed. "If she agrees, I think we had better go together."

"And do you agree, Juliette?" enquired Saltash with interest.

Juliet met the mocking eyes with a smile that was certainly unintentional. "They may be in the Castle," she said. "I know they meant to go."

"Good!" he ejaculated. "Then come to the Castle! I will get you tea in my own secret den if such a thing is to be had—tea or a cocktail, ma Juliette!"

"Will you lead the way?" said Juliet, and for a second—only a second—her hand pressed Dick's arm with a quick, confidential pressure that was not without its appeal. "We always follow Charles Rex!" she said.

Saltash chuckled. Plainly the adventure amused him.

They entered the trim gardens, escaping thankfully from the wandering crowd of sight-seers. Saltash led the way with a certain unconscious arrogance of bearing. Somehow, his ugliness notwithstanding, he fitted his surroundings perfectly, save that the white yachting-suit ought to have been fashioned of satin, and a sword should have dangled at his side. The old stone turrets that towered above the blazing parterres gleamed in the hot sunlight—a mediaeval castle of romance.

"What a glorious old place!" said Juliet.

He turned to her. "You have never seen it before?"

"Never," she answered.

He made her a bow that was slightly foreign. There was French blood in his veins. "I give you welcome, maladi," he said, "I and my poor castle are all yours to command."

He made a gallant figure there on his stone terrace. The girl's eyes shone a little, but they turned almost immediately to the other man at her side.

"Beautiful, isn't it, Dick?" she said.

He met her look, and she was conscious of a chill. She had never seen him look so aloof, so cynical. "A temple of delight!" he said.

His manner offended her. She turned deliberately away from him. And again
Lord Saltash chuckled, as though at some secret joke.

They entered by a narrow door at the head of a flight of steps. "This at least is private," declared Saltash, as he took a key from an inner pocket.

"Does no one ever come in here when you are away?" Juliet asked.

"Not by this entrance," he said. "There is another into the Castle itself which is known to a few. It leads into the music room whence Mr. Green will be able to start upon his search."

He threw a mischievous glance at Green who met it with a look so direct, and so unswerving that the odd eyes blinked and turned away.

But curiously a spirit of perversity seemed to have entered into Juliet.
She also looked at Dick. "I wish you would go and find them," she said.
"I know they will be wondering where we are."

His brows went up. She thought he was going to refuse. And then quite suddenly he yielded. "Certainly if you wish it!" he said. "And when they are found?"

"Oh, dump them in the great hall!" said Saltash. "To be left till called for!"

"Charles!" protested Juliet.

He grinned at her—a wicked, monkeyish grin, and threw open the door, disclosing a steep and winding stone stair.

"Will you be pleased to enter!" he said, in the tone of one issuing a royal command.

But she hung for a moment, looking back with a strange wistfulness at the man she was leaving. The imprisoned air came out into the hot sunshine like a cold vapour. She shivered a little.

"Dick!" she said.

He stopped at the foot of the outside steps looking up at her. His eyes were extremely bright, and something within her shrank from their straight regard. It conveyed possession, dominance; almost it conveyed a menace.

"When you have found them, come and—tell me!" she said.

He lifted his hat to her with punctilious courtesy, and turned away. "I will," he said.

"That's a masterful sort of person," observed Saltash, as they mounted the dimly-lit turret stair. "What does he do for a living?"

Juliet hesitated, conscious of a strong repugnance to discuss her lover with this man from her old world whom, strangely, at that moment, she felt that she knew so infinitely better. But she could not withhold an answer to so ordinary a question. Moreover Saltash could be imperious when he chose, and she knew instinctively that it was not wise to cross him.

"By profession," she said slowly at length, "he is—a village schoolmaster."

Saltash's laugh stung, though it was exactly what she had expected. But he qualified it the next moment with careless generosity.

"Quite a presentable cavalier, ma Juliette! And a fixed occupation is something of an advantage at times, n'est-ce-pas?—Je t'aime, tu l'aime! And how soon do you ride away? Or is that question premature?"

Juliet's face burned in the dimness, but she was in front of him and thankfully aware that he could not see it. "I am not answering any more questions, Charles," she said. "Now that you have got me into your ogre's castle, you must be—kind."

"I will be kindness itself," he assured her. "You know I am the soul of hospitality. All I have is yours."

The narrow stair ended at a small stone landing on which was a door. Juliet stepped aside as she reached it, and waited for her host. "It's rather like a prison," she said.

"You won't think so when you get through that door," he said. "By Jove! To think that I've actually got you—you of all people!—here in my stronghold! Do you realize that without my permission you can't possibly get out again?"

Juliet's laugh was absolutely spontaneous. She faced him in that narrow space with the poise and confidence of a queen. The light from a window that pierced the wall above shone down upon her. In that moment she was endowed with an extraordinary beauty that was more of being, of personality, than of feature.

"It is exactly this that I have played for, Charles Rex," she said. "You hold all the cards, mon ami. But—the game is mine."

"How so?" He was looking at her curiously, a dancing demon in his eyes.

She put out her hand to him, and as he took it, sank to the stone floor in a superb curtsy. "Because I claim your gracious protection, my lord the king. I ask your royal favour."

He lifted her hand to his lips as she rose. "You are—as ever—quite irresistible, ma Juliette," he smiled. "But—do you really contemplate marrying this fortunate young man? Because there are limits—even to my generosity. I am not sure that I can permit that."

Her eyes looked straight into his. "You can do—anything you choose to do, Charles Rex," she said; "except one thing."

He made a grimace at her. "I am king in my own castle anyway," he observed, watching her. "And you are at my mercy."

"It is your mercy that I am waiting for," she said, a faint smile at the corners of her lips.

"Ah!" he said, stood a moment longer, contemplating her, then turned abruptly and flung open the door against which he stood.

It led into a winding passage of such a totally different character from the stone staircase they had just mounted that Juliet stood gazing down it for some seconds before she obeyed his mute gesture to pass through. It was thickly carpeted, deadening all sound, and the walls were hung with some heavy material, in the colour of old oak. It was lighted by three long perpendicular slits of windows, let into a twelve-foot thickness of wall. Juliet had a glimpse of many pine trees as she passed them.

The passage ended in heavy curtains of the same dark-brown material. She stopped and looked at her companion.

"What is it?" he said, with a laugh. "Are you afraid of my inner sanctuary?"

He parted the curtains, disclosing a tall oak door. She saw no latch upon it, but his hand went up behind the curtain, and she heard the click of a spring. In a moment the tall door opened before her.

"Go in!" he said easily.

She entered a strange room, oak-panelled, shaped like a cone, lighted only by a glass dome in the roof. It was the most curious chamber she had ever seen. She trod on a tiger-skin as she entered, and noted that the floor was covered with them. There was no chair anywhere, only a long, deep couch, also draped with tiger-skins. Tiger faces glared at her from all directions. She heard the door click behind her and turning realized that it had disappeared in the oak panelling against which her host was standing.

He laughed at her quizzically, "I believe you are frightened."

She looked around her, seeing no exit anywhere. "It is just the sort of freak apartment I should expect you to delight in," she said.

"You wouldn't have come if you had known, would you?" he said, a faint note of jeering in his voice.

"Of course I should!" said Juliet.

"Of course!" he mocked. "I am such a peculiarly safe person, am I not?
Every member of your charming sex trusts me instinctively."

She turned and faced him. "Don't be ridiculous, Charles! You see, I happen to know you."

He looked at her with something of the air of a monkey that contemplates snatching some forbidden thing. "Why did you run away?" he said.

She hesitated. "That's a hard question, isn't it?"

"Oh, don't mind me!" he said. "I don't flatter myself I was the cause."

Her dark brows were slightly drawn. "No, you were not," she said. "It was just—it was Lady Jo herself, Charlie. No one else."

"Ah!" His goblin smile flashed out at her. "Poor erring Lady Jo! Don't be too hard on her! She has her points."

She laid her hand quickly on his arm. "Don't try to defend her! She is quite despicable. I have done with her."

His hand was instantly on hers. He laughed into her eyes. "I'll wager you have a lingering fellow-feeling for her even yet."

"Not since she was reported to have run away with you," countered Juliet.

He laughed aloud. "Ah! She forfeited your sympathy there, did she? Mais, Juliette—" his voice sank suddenly upon a caressing note, "there are few women to whom I could not give happiness—for a time."

"I know," said Juliet, and drew her hand away. "That is why we all admire you so. But even you, most potent Charles, couldn't satisfy a woman who was wanting—some one else."

"You don't think I could make her forget?" he said.

She shook her head, smiling. "When the real thing comes along, all shams must go overboard. It's the rule of the game."

"And this is the real thing?" he questioned.

She made a little gesture as of one who accepts the inevitable. "Je le crois bien," she said softly.

Lord Saltash made a grimace. "And I am to give you up without a thought to this bounder?"

"You would," she replied gently, "if I were yours to give."

"If you were Lady Jo for instance?" he suggested.

"Exactly. If I were Lady Jo." She looked at him with the faint smile still at her lips. "It won't cost you much to be generous, Charles," she said.

"How do you know what it costs?" He frowned at her suddenly. "You'll accuse me of being benevolent next. But I'm not benevolent, and I'm not going to be. I might be to Lady Jo, but not to you, ma chÉrie,—never to you!" His grin burst through his frown. "Come! Sit down! I'll get you a drink."

She turned to the deep settee, and sank down among tigerskins with a sigh. He opened a cupboard in the panelling of the wall, and there followed the chink of glasses and the cheery buzz of a syphon. In a few moments he came to her with a tall glass in his hand containing a frothy drink. "Look here, Juliette!" he said. "Come to France with me in the Night Moth, and we'll find Lady Jo!"

She accepted the drink and lay back without looking at him. "You always were an eccentric," she said. "I don't want to find Lady Jo."

He sat on the head of the settee at her elbow. "It's quite a fair offer," he said, as if she had not spoken. "You will—eventually—return from Paris, and no one will ever know. In these days a woman of the world pleases herself and is answerable to none. Mais, Juliette!" He reached down and coaxingly held her hand. "Pourquoi pas?"

She lifted her eyes slowly to his face. "I have told you," she said.

"You're not in earnest!" he protested.

She kept her look steadily upon him. "Charles Rex, I am in earnest."

His fingers clasped hers more closely. "But I can't allow it. We can't spare you. And you—yourself, Juliette—you will never endure life in a backwater. You will pine for the old days, the old friends, the old lovers,—as they will pine for you."

"No, never!" said Juliet firmly.

He leaned down to her. "I say you will. This is—a midsummer madness.
This will pass."

She started slightly at his words. The sparkling liquid splashed over. She lifted the glass to her lips, and drank. When she ceased, he took it softly from her, and put it to his own. Then he set down the empty glass and slipped his arm behind her.

"Juliette, I am going to save you," he said, "from yourself."

She drew away from him. "Charles, I forbid that!"

She was breathing quickly but her voice was quiet. There was indomitable resolution in her eyes.

He paused, looking at her closely. "You deny—to me—what you were permitting with so much freedom barely half-an-hour ago to the village schoolmaster?" he said.

Her face flamed. "I have always denied you—that!" she said.

He smiled. "Times alter, Juliette. You are no longer in a position to deny me."

She kept her eyes upon him. "You mean I have trusted you too far?" she said, a deep throb in her voice. "I might have known!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Life is a game of hazard, is it not? And you were always a daring player. But, Juliette, you cannot always win. This time the luck is against you."

She was silent. Very slowly her eyes left his. She drooped forward as she sat.

He leaned down to her again, his face oddly sympathetic. "After all,—you claimed my protection," he said.

She made a sudden movement. She turned sharply, almost blindly. She caught him by the shoulders. "Oh, Charles!" she said. "Charles Rex! Is there no mercy no honour—in you?"

There was a passion of supplication in her voice and action. As she held him he could have clasped her in his arms. But he did not. He sat motionless, looking at her, his expression still monkey-like, half-wicked, half-wistful.

"Well, you shouldn't tempt me, Juliette," he said. "It isn't fair to a miserable sinner. You were always the cherry just out of reach. Naturally, I'm inclined to snatch when I find I can."

Juliet was trembling, but she controlled her agitation.

"No, that isn't allowed," she said. "It isn't the game. And you never—seriously—wanted me either."

"But I'm never serious!" protested Saltash. "Neither are you. It's your one solid virtue."

"I am serious now," she said.

He looked at her quizzically. "Somehow it suits you. Well, listen, Juliette! I'll strike a bargain with you. When you are through with this, you will come with me for that cruise in the Night Moth. Come! Promise!"

"But I am not—quite mad, Rex!" she said.

He lifted his hands to hers and lightly held them. "It is no madder a project than the one you are at present engaged upon. What? You won't? You defy me to do my worst?"

"No, I don't defy you," she said.

He flashed a smile at her. "How wise! But listen! It's a bargain all the same. You put me on my honour. I put you on yours. Go your own way! Pursue this bubble you call love! And when it bursts and your heart is broken—you will come back to me to have it mended. That is the price I put upon my mercy. I ask no pledge. It shall be—a debt of honour. We count that higher than a pledge."

"Ah!" Juliet said, and suppressed a sudden tremor.

He stood up, gallantly raising her as he did so. "And now we will go and look for your friends," he said. "Is all well, ma chÉrie? You look pale."

She forced herself to smile. "You are a preposterous person, Charles
Rex," she said. "Yes, let us go!"

She turned with him towards the panelling, but she did not see by what trick he opened again the door by which they had entered. She only saw, with a wild leap of the heart, Dick Green, upright, virile, standing against the dark hangings of the passage beyond.