Despite his attempts to avoid the conversation and change the subject, Miss Forster remained persistent in seeking an explanation from him. She accused him of wronging her and demanded answers about his actions during the game. Despite Tickell's denials and confusion about the situation, Miss Forster insisted on getting to the bottom of the issue, revealing the tension and drama unfolding between them at the event.Upon my word, I hardly know what I did do, it was a regular rough-and-tumble; Beaton fought like ten wild cats. I daresay I did bear a hand.""Oh, you dare say? I congratulate you, Mr. Tickell, on the courageous assistance you lent your brother officers; was it twelve or twenty against one? They could scarcely have done without you. Cowards! And having assisted your friends in getting rid of the rightful claimant, you had no scruple in placing Mr. Beaton's money in your pocket, and, I presume, paying with it some of the more pressing debts which I understand you owed?"The young gentleman winced, the lady's thrust had gone home."That's all I want from you, Mr. Tickell; I am obliged to you for the confession you have made. I advise you to consider your position, and to ask yourself, when you are dancing with your next partner, if a person who has behaved as you have done is entitled to show his face in such a house as this. Mr. Beaton cheated no one; he is incapable of such conduct as yours; you cheated him, having first joined yourself with some twelve or twenty of your friends to get him out of the way. Think over what I have said to you, Mr. Tickell, instead of whispering soft nothings to your partners, and remember that I shall be watching. Now you may go."

CHAPTER XIV

"Who is Simmons?"

Miss Forster was strolling by herself along the corridor; she had declined to permit Mr. Tickell to accompany her, and the youth had seemed glad enough to get away. She examined her programme; she had it in her mind to cut the next dance, not from one of the reasons which usually prompt that nefarious course of action, but because she had a strong feeling that for a few minutes she would like to be alone. She passed into the conservatory through a door which was at the end of the corridor. The music for the next dance had already commenced; the sitters-out, to whom the conservatory is a haven much to be desired, had gone. She moved to a couch which was flanked on either side by towering ferns. She had just sat down and was congratulating herself upon the prospect of remaining, for at least a brief period, undisturbed, when a voice addressed her."I am fortunate, Miss Forster, in finding you alone."

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