He would know at once when Honora returned.

‘I must make it clear to her that this sort of thing must never happen again,’ he told himself.

Then insidiously, as if somebody was whispering in his ear, he began to realise that there were other dangers she might encounter besides thieves.

She was lovely in her own way and, he suspected, very innocent. Suppose a man spoke to her? Would she know what to do?

Because the idea really perturbed him he thought perhaps he should send for the Police to look for her, but once again he knew that there was no more certain way of inviting the scandal he dreaded.

However much he admonished the Policemen not to talk, he was quite sure they would know him as a sportsman besides being a Duke and a householder and would be unable to keep such a dramatic search a secret.

‘What can I do?’ the Duke asked himself and thought that never in his whole life had he felt so helpless.

‘There must be something!’ he insisted.

There was no answer except to wait and hope that Honora would return unaware of the commotion she had caused.

Because he could not help himself, the Duke went again to the front door.

After looking up and down the road again, he walked a little way down Park Lane, only to see no sign of anybody except a prostitute in the distance.

As she was walking towards him and he had no wish to be accosted by such a creature, he turned and walked quickly back into the house.

He did not speak to James and once again went back to the sitting room thinking despairingly that in a little while there would be no point in waiting for her.

After that he could only hope that in the morning Honora would return from wherever she was staying.

He tried to convince himself that she had gone to someone she knew and again he considered going to Grosvenor Square just in case she had reached her uncle’s house by one of the streets leading off Park Lane.

But he could imagine nothing more humiliating than rousing the household, which would be asleep by this time, to ask if they had any news of his wife.

‘I cannot do that, but what can I do?’ he asked himself, and once again there was no answer.

Just when he was feeling that the only sensible thing was to make some pretence of going to bed, he heard James’s voice and knew that he was speaking to somebody at the front door.

He went quickly into the hall and saw that the footman was talking to a man who was handing him some pieces of paper.

He walked up to them.

“What is it? What do you want?” he asked.

At the sharp voice of authority the man looked up at him nervously, but at the same time there was an almost jaunty note in his voice as he replied,