“Has he not told you about himself?” Elizabeth asked. “He is a very controlled person, which is a personal victory. He has a tremendous knowledge of art and has made some fascinating discoveries, but he will want to tell you all this himself. I just thought as you knew him so well – ”

“But I do not know him well,” Alyna interrupted. “We only met last night!”

“Last night!” Elizabeth repeated in astonishment. “Then why – ?”

She stopped.

“I am sorry, I don’t wish to ask questions or seem overcurious.”

“Some time I would like to tell you all about it – ” Alyna said in a low voice.

“Yes, of course, but not at the moment,” Elizabeth finished for her. “I can understand that. We were talking about Ulric.”

“He has been very kind to me,” Alyna said.

“He is kind in so many ways that people are not aware of,” Elizabeth said. “Sometimes I feel that I could kill that woman!”

“What woman?” Alyna asked.

“The girl he wanted to marry,” Elizabeth answered. “Oh, it happened such a long time ago I suppose you will not have heard of it! But she was the reason why Ulric has sworn that he will never get married. He is an avowed bachelor and that is why, when he said he was bringing you down here, I hoped – ”

Her voice died away and she looked embarrassed.

“I can understand that – it must seem strange, your brother arriving with a girl you have never heard of, in the middle of the night,” Alyna said quickly. “But I promise you that there is nothing like that between us. In fact like your brother – I have vowed never to get married. I hate men! I hate all men!”

“I don’t believe it!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Besides, even if you hate men they certainly will not hate you, you are far too pretty.”

“It must be the candlelight,” Alyna said. “I can assure you that I am not the least pretty in the day time.”

Elizabeth Wardell gave a little laugh.

“If Ulric wished to divert me from a fit of the dismals, he could not have succeeded better. It all sounds like a wildly exciting novel.”

“What does?” Alyna asked.

“You and Ulric for one thing,” Elizabeth Wardell replied. “Here is he vowing that he will never marry anyone, talking of forming his own Bachelor Club. You saying that you hate men and will never marry! Yet you arrive together in the darkness, driving down from London secretly and mysteriously! If that is not the beginning of a drama, I would like to know what is!”

“All we want now is a dead body,” Alyna said with a lilt in her voice, “and then we really would have the whole Cheltenham Theatricals.”

“I think I shall write it all down and send it to a publisher,” Elizabeth Wardell cried. “It will make me a fortune! Of course I shall say it’s a true story,”