“There are stories about her, eh?” Hamilton said.

“As there are about every good-looking woman.  Beauty cannot escape unjust criticism or the scars of lying tongues.”

“People pity Sir Henry, I’ve heard.”

“They, of course, sympathise with him, poor old gentleman, because he’s blind.  His is, indeed, a terrible affliction.  Only fancy the change from a brilliant Parliamentary career to idleness, darkness, and knitting.”

“I suppose he’s very wealthy?”

“He must be.  The price he paid for Glencardine was a very heavy one; and, besides that, he has two other places, as well as a house in Park Street and a villa at San Remo.”

“Cotton, or steel, or soap, or some other domestic necessity, I suppose?”

Murie shrugged his shoulders.  “Nobody knows,” he answered.  “The source of Sir Henry’s vast wealth is a profound mystery.”

His friend smiled, but said nothing.  Walter Murie had risen to obtain matches, therefore he did not notice the curious expression upon his friend’s face, a look which betrayed that he knew more than he intended to tell.

“Those noises heard in the castle puzzle me,” he remarked after a few moments.

“At Glencardine they are known as the Whispers,” Murie remarked.

“By Jove!  I’d like to hear them.”

“I don’t think there’d be much chance of that, old chap,” laughed the other.  “They’re only heard by those doomed to an early death.”

“I may be.  Who knows?” he asked gloomily.

“Well, if I were you I wouldn’t anticipate catastrophe.”

“No,” said his friend in a more serious tone, “I’ve already heard those at Hetzendorf, and—­well, I confess they’ve aroused in my mind some very uncanny apprehensions.”

“But did you really hear them?  Are you sure they were not imagination?  In the night sounds always become both magnified and distorted.”

“Yes, I’m certain of what I heard.  I was careful to convince myself that it was not imagination, but actual reality.”

Walter Murie smiled dubiously.  “Sir Henry scouts the idea of the Whispers being heard at Glencardine,” he said.

“And, strangely enough, so does the Baron.  He’s a most matter-of-fact man.”

“How curious that the cases are almost parallel, and yet so far apart!  The Baron has a daughter, and so has Sir Henry.”

“Gabrielle is at Glencardine, I suppose?” asked Hamilton.

“No, she’s living with a maiden aunt at an out-of-the-world village in Northamptonshire called Woodnewton.”

“Oh, I thought she always lived at Glencardine, and acted as her father’s right hand.”

“She did until a few months ago, when——­” and he paused.  “Well,” he went on, “I don’t know exactly what occurred, except that she left suddenly, and has not since returned.”

“Her mother, perhaps.  No girl of spirit gets on well with her stepmother.”