“A visitor came to Windygates yesterday, while we were all at lunch,” proceeded Sir Patrick.  “She—­”

Lady Lundie seized the scarlet memorandum-book, and stopped her brother-in-law, before he could get any further.  Her ladyship’s next words escaped her lips spasmodically, like words let at intervals out of a trap.

“I undertake—­as a woman accustomed to self-restraint, Sir Patrick—­I undertake to control myself, on one condition.  I won’t have the name mentioned.  I won’t have the sex mentioned.  Say, ‘The Person,’ if you please.  ‘The Person,’” continued Lady Lundie, opening her memorandum-book and taking up her pen, “committed an audacious invasion of my premises yesterday?”

Sir Patrick bowed.  Her ladyship made a note—­a fiercely-penned note that scratched the paper viciously—­and then proceeded to examine her brother-in-law, in the capacity of witness.

“What part of my house did ‘The Person’ invade?  Be very careful, Sir Patrick!  I propose to place myself under the protection of a justice of the peace; and this is a memorandum of my statement.  The library—­did I understand you to say?  Just so—­the library.”

“Add,” said Sir Patrick, with another pressure on the blister, “that The Person had an interview with Blanche in the library.”

Lady Lundie’s pen suddenly stuck in the paper, and scattered a little shower of ink-drops all round it.  “The library,” repeated her ladyship, in a voice suggestive of approaching suffocation.  “I undertake to control myself, Sir Patrick!  Any thing missing from the library?”

“Nothing missing, Lady Lundie, but The Person herself.  She—­”

“No, Sir Patrick!  I won’t have it!  In the name of my own sex, I won’t have it!”

“Pray pardon me—­I forgot that ‘she’ was a prohibited pronoun on the present occasion.  The Person has written a farewell letter to Blanche, and has gone nobody knows where.  The distress produced by these events is alone answerable for what has happened to Blanche this morning.  If you bear that in mind—­and if you remember what your own opinion is of Miss Silvester—­you will understand why Blanche hesitated to admit you into her confidence.”

There he waited for a reply.  Lady Lundie was too deeply absorbed in completing her memorandum to be conscious of his presence in the room.

“‘Carriage to be at the door at two-thirty,’” said Lady Lundie, repeating the final words of the memorandum while she wrote them.  “’Inquire for the nearest justice of the peace, and place the privacy of Windygates under the protection of the law.’—­I beg your pardon!” exclaimed her ladyship, becoming conscious again of Sir Patrick’s presence.  “Have I missed any thing particularly painful?  Pray mention it if I have!”

“You have missed nothing of the slightest importance,” returned Sir Patrick.  “I have placed you in possession of facts which you had a right to know; and we have now only to return to our medical friend’s report on Blanche’s health.  You were about to favor me, I think, with the Prognosis?”