I opened my window and gazed away across the dark Nithsdale, where, in the distant gloom, the black line of wood loomed up against the stormy sky.  The stars were no longer shining and the rain clouds had gathered.  I stood with my face turned to the dark indistinct spot that held the secret, lost in wonderment.

At last I closed the window and turned in, but no sleep came to my eyes, so full was my mind of the startling events of those past few months and of that gruesome discovery I had made.

Had the fugitive actually recognized me?  Probably my voice when I had called out had betrayed me.  Hour after hour I lay puzzling, trying to arrive at some solution of that intricate problem which now presented itself.  Muriel could tell me what I wished to know.  Of that I was certain.  Yet she dared not speak.  Some inexpressible terror held her dumb—­she was affianced to the man Martin Woodroffe.

Again I rose, lit the gas, and tried to read a novel.  But I could not concentrate my thoughts, which were ever wandering to that strange mystery of the wood.  At six I shaved, descended, and went out with the dogs for a short walk; but on returning I heard of nothing unusual, and was compelled to remain inactive until near mid-day.

I was crossing the stable-yard where I had gone to order the carriage for my aunt, when an English groom, suddenly emerging from the harness-room, touched his cap, saying—­

“Have you ’eard, sir, of the awful affair up yonder?”

“Of what?” I asked quickly.

“Well, sir, there seems to have been a murder last night up in Rannoch Wood,” said the man quickly.  “Holden, the gardener, has just come back from that village and says that Mr. Leithcourt’s under-gamekeeper as he was going home at five this morning came upon a dead body.”

“A dead body!” I exclaimed, feigning great surprise.

“Yes, sir—­a youngish man.  He’d been stabbed to the heart.”

“A man!”

“Yes, sir—­so Holden says.”

“Call Holden.  I’d like to know all he’s heard,” I said.  And presently, when the gardener emerged from the grape-house, I sought of him all the particulars he had gathered.

“I don’t know very much, sir,” was the man’s reply.  “I went into the inn for a glass of beer at eleven, as I always do, and heard them talking about it.  A young man was murdered last night up in Rannoch Wood.  The gamekeeper thought at first there’d been a fight among poachers, but from the dead man’s clothes they say he isn’t a poacher at all, but a stranger in this district.”

“The body was that of a man, then?” I asked, trying to conceal my utter bewilderment.

“Yes—­about thirty, they say.  The police have taken him to the mortuary at Dumfries, and the detectives are up there now looking at the spot, they say.”

A man!  And yet the body I found was that of a woman—­that I could swear.

After lunch I took the dog-cart and drove alone into Dumfries.