"We managed it capitally; but I don't like the portrait," said Robert,
when they had crept back. "There is something odd about it."

"There is," answered Alicia. "We never have seen my lady look as she
does in that picture; but I think she could look so."

Next day Talboys and Robert went fishing. George pretended to fish;
Robert slept on the river-bank. The servants were at dinner at the
Court; Alicia had gone riding. Lady Audley sauntered out, book in hand,
to the shady lime walk. George Talboys came up to the hall, rang the
bell, was told that her ladyship was walking in the lime avenue. He
looked disappointed at the intelligence, and walked away. A full hour
and a half later, Lady Audley returned to the house, not coming from the
lime avenue, but from the opposite direction. In her own room she
confronted her maid, Phoebe. The eyes of the two women met.

"Phoebe Marks," said my lady presently, "you are a good girl; and while
I live and am prosperous, you shall not want a firm friend and a
twenty-pound note."


_IV.--The Search and the Counter Check_


Robert Audley awoke from his nap to find George Talboys gone. He
searched in the grounds and in the inn for him in vain. At the
railway-station he heard that a man who, from the description given,
might be Talboys, had gone by the afternoon train to London. In the
evening he went up to the Court to dinner. Lady Audley was gay and