I corked up the bottle and put it down. "Now you e going to have this dose and it will make you keep and you'll forget all about it. All you need to remember is that I am here and if you want anything you only have to tell me."

"Oh, I'm glad you're here. Is Miss Hetherington cross with me?"

"Of course not. She's as concerned as everyone else is."

"Charlotte will sneer now, won't she?"

"Charlotte behaved quite well really. She took the girls back. I am sure she wouldn't want you to be hurt."

"Then why is she always trying to hurt me?" "She doesn't really mean to hurt, only to deliver little pinpricks."

"I don't mind about her nearly so much as I used to. It was different when you came. It was because you were in Africa too, and then you came home to Aunt Patty. I wish I had Aunt Patty."

There was a discreet knock on the door. It was a maid with a case which she said had just been sent from the school. I opened it. In it was a note from Daisy saying that here were some things which she thought we might need. There were my night-clothes and those of Teresa and I was astonished to see that she had sent one of my dresses-my best blue silk.

I wanted to give Teresa her sedative, so I asked if she would care for me to help her into her nightgown as she would be more comfortable in that than in her undergarments. She had discarded her riding habit when examined by the doctor and it now lay over a chair. So I helped her undress and put on her nightgown. Then I said: "Drink this and then I think you are going to feel very sleepy."

She did. She went on talking for a little while in a desultory way, her voice growing more and more drowsy. The sedative was beginning to work.

"Teresa," I said gently, and there was no answer.

She looked very young and vulnerable lying there and I thought how sad it was that her parents were so far away and that the distant relatives in England did not want to be bothered with her. I wondered if her mother and father longed to have her with them; and my thoughts went once more to Aunt Patty and all I would have to tell her when I saw her again.

There was a gentle tap on the door. I crept to it and opened, it. Jason Verringer was standing there with a middle-aged woman.

"How is Teresa?" he asked.

"Sleeping. The sedative worked quickly."

"The doctor said it would. This is Mrs. Keel my very worthy housekeeper. She will sit with Teresa while we dine and if Teresa should awaken she will come for you immediately."

He was smiling at me with just a hint of triumph. I hesitated. I did not see how I could refuse. Mrs. Keel was smiling at me. "You can trust me," she said. "I'm used to looking after people."

There was no help for it. I had given way limply because I could not refuse before his housekeeper. It would be insulting to her to suggest that she was incapable of looking after Teresa-who was asleep in any case. So I should have to dine with him after all. I had to admit secretly that I was not as averse to the prospect as I had pretended to be. I did fend a certain pleasure in letting him know that I was not by any means attracted by him, because I was sure he was trying to impress me. From what I had heard of his reputation he was considered- or considered himself- irresistible to women. It would be amusing and rather stimulating to let him see that here was one who was quite immune to his masculine charms.

"It is good of you," I said to Mrs. Keel. "She is a sensitive girl ... and if she should awake ..."

"She is not likely to," said Jason Verringer. "And if by any chance she does, Mrs. Keel will immediately fetch you. So that is arranged. Mrs. Keel will come up in half an hour. If you are ready then we can go straight in to dinner."

Short of putting myself in the awkward position of explaining that I knew of his reputation and did not consider him a suitable companion, I could see no way out; and the only possible action was to accept graciously and get away as quickly as I could.

So I inclined my head in acknowledgement of the arrangements, thanked Mrs. Keel and said I would be ready in half an hour.

I changed into the blue silk and felt a certain pleasure because Daisy had sent that one which was my most becoming.

I brushed my hair until it shone. There was a faint and rare colour in my cheeks which brightened my eyes. Really, I thought. I am quite looking forward to this just for the pleasure of bringing home to him the fact that all women are not as impressed with him as he believes them to be.

Mrs. Keel tapped gently at the door. She came in and we stood side by side looking down on Teresa.

"She is sleeping deeply," I whispered.

Mrs. Keel nodded. "I'll call you at once if she wakes."

"Thank you," I said.

One of the maids was waiting outside to take me down, and I was conducted to a small room with a door which opened onto a courtyard. He was already there waiting for me, looking very satisfied.

"I thought we would eat in here," he said, "and then, if you have no objection, afterwards we could take coffee and port or brandy or something in the courtyard. It is pleasant out there on summer evenings. I often sit out there if I have a guest."

"That sounds very agreeable."

"You must be hungry, Miss Grant."

"I think the events of the day are enough to rob anyone of appetite."

"When you see our excellent duckling you will change your mind. I am sure you will appreciate our cook. I am very fortunate. I have good servants. It is the result of careful selection ... and training. You eat well at that exclusive establishment for young ladies, I believe."

"Yes. Miss Hetherington insists on that. Much of the produce comes from the Abbey gardens."

"Carrying on the old monastic traditions. Ah, traditions, Miss Grant. How they rule the lives of people like us. Do sit down. There ... opposite me so that I can see you. I always enjoy there intimate dinner parties more than those in the great hall. This, of course is only big enough for four at the most, but two is more suitable."

It was a charming room, oak-panelled with a painted ceiling on which fat cupids disported on fleecy clouds while an angel looked benignly on.

He saw me looking at it.

"It provides quite a celestial atmosphere, don't you think?"

I looked at him and the thought struck me that he was like Lucifer shut out of heaven. That seemed ridiculous and fanciful and far from the point. I was sure he would never allow himself to be shut out of any place he wanted to be in.

"Yes," I said. "It does. Although what cupids are doing up in the clouds, I am not sure."

"Looking for an unwary heart to pierce with the arrows of love."

"They would need a very sure aim if they planned to strike someone on earth ... even if the clouds are low-lying."

"You have a practical mind, Miss Grant, and I like that. Ah, here comes the soup. I trust it will be to your liking."

A discreet manservant was carrying in a tureen from which he served us. Then he produced a bottle of wine and poured it into the glasses.

"I hope also that you will approve of the wine," said Jason. Verringer. "I chose it specially. It is of a vintage year ... one of the best of the century."

"You should not take such pains on my account," I replied. "I am not a connoisseur and cannot really appreciate it."

"Didn't they teach appreciation of good wine at that very select school in Switzerland? I am surprised. You should have gone to that one in France ... I forget its name. I am sure the knowledge of wine would have come into their curriculum."

He tasted the wine and raised his eyes to the ceiling with an expression of mock ecstasy.

"Very fine," he said. "Your health, Miss Grant, and that of the girl upstairs."

I drank with him.

"And to us," he added. "You ... myself ... and our growing friendship which has begun in rather dramatic circumstances."

I took another sip and put down my glass.

He went on: "You must admit that all three occasions of our meeting have been unusual. First a hold-up in a narrow lane; then you are lost and I come to your rescue; and now this affair of the runaway horse, which has led to our being here together."

"Perhaps you are the sort of person to whom dramatic things happen."

He considered that. "I suppose something dramatic happens to most people now and then in their lifetimes. What of you?"

I was silent. My thoughts had gone back to that meeting in the forest and my uncanny-as it now seemed-encounter with a man who, according to a tombstone in Suffolk, had been long since dead. Strangely enough, this man, whose most outstanding quality was his vitality and firm grip on life, was reminding me more vividly of my strange experience than I had been for some time now.

He leaned forward. "I seem to have awakened memories."

He had a way of penetrating my thoughts which I found disconcerting.

"As I was involved in those events which you call dramatic, I suppose you would say I had experienced them too. Drama, like everything else, is in the mind of those who take part in it. I don't think I see those incidents-apart from what happened to Teresa-as dramatic."

"Do have some more soup."

"No, thanks. It was delicious, but I am too concerned about Teresa to give your food the attention it deserves."

"Perhaps at some later time you will make up for your neglect."

I laughed and he signed for the butler to bring in the duckling.

He asked about his nieces and how I thought the Academy was benefiting them. Out of loyalty to Daisy, I assured him that the benefits were great.

"Fiona is a quiet girl," he said. "She takes after her mother. But quiet people are sometimes deceptive. Out of your vast experience you will know that."

"I have learned that we know very little about anybody. There are always surprises in the human character. People say so and so acted out of character. That is not really so. They have acted according to some part of their character which they have not hitherto shown to the world."

"That's true. So we can expect Fiona one day to surprise us all."

"Perhaps."

"Eugenie not so, because nothing she did would surprise me very much. Would it you, Miss Grant?"

"Eugenie is a girl whose character is as yet unformed. She is ready to be influenced. She is-rather unfortunately-by a girl named Charlotte Mackay."

"I know her. She has been here for holidays. I also know her father."

"Charlotte is very anxious that no one should forget she is an Honourable when it would be so much more becoming if she sought to conceal the fact."

"Do you approve of concealment, Miss Grant?" "In certain circumstances."

He nodded slowly and attempted to fill my glass. I put my hand over it to prevent his doing so for I was sure he would have filled it even though I declined.

"You are very abstemious."

"Shall we say unused to drinking a great deal." "A little afraid that those excellent wits might become a little befuddled?"

"I shall make sure that they do not."

He filled his own glass.

"Tell me about your home," he said.

"Are you really interested?"

"Very."

"There is very little of interest. My parents died. They were missionaries in Africa."

"Do you share their piety?"

"I'm afraid not."

"One would have thought that parents who were missionaries would have produced offspring eager to carry on the good work."

"On the contrary. My parents believed ardently in what they did. Although I was very young when I left them, I realized that. It was goodness in a way. They suffered hardship. In fact they died for their beliefs in the end, you might say. I suppose that is the supreme sacrifice. Then I came home to a beloved aunt and I saw a different sort of goodness. If I were able to emulate the goodness of one or the other I would choose that of my aunt."

"Your voice changes when you speak of her. You are very fond of this aunt."

I nodded. There were tears in my eyes and I was ashamed of them. Disliking him as I did, he yet had the power to play on my emotions. I was not sure what it was-the words he used, the inflections of his voice, the expression in his eyes. Oddly enough I felt there was something rather sad about him, which was absurd. He was arrogant in the extreme, seeing himself more than life size, the master of many, and wanting to prove himself to be the master of all.