“You do not know whether Mrs. Smith-Lessing is expected back?”

“I have not heard, sir.  They left no servants there—­not even a caretaker.”

I stepped back again into the night and took the shortest cut across the park to the house.  As I neared the entrance gates I left the path and crept up close to the plantation which bordered the road.  My heart gave a jump as I listened.  I could hear the low level throbbing of a motor somewhere quite close at hand.  The lights had been extinguished, but it was there waiting.  I did not hesitate any longer.  I kept on the turf by the side of the avenue and made my way up to the house.

The library alone and one small window on the ground floor were lit.  I crept up on the terrace and tried to peer in, but across each of the library windows the curtains were too closely drawn.  There remained the small window at the end of the terrace.  I crept on tiptoe towards this, feeling my way through the darkness by the front of the house.  Suddenly I came to a full stop.  I flattened myself against the stonework and held my breath.  Some one else was on the terrace.  What I had heard was unmistakable.  It was the wind blowing amongst a woman’s skirts, and the woman was very close at hand.

I almost felt her warm breath as she stole past me.  I caught a gleam of a pale face, sufficient to tell me who she was.  She passed on and took up her stand outside that small end window.

I, too, crept nearer to it.—­About a yard away there was a projection of the front.  I stole into the deep corner and waited.  A few feet from me I knew that she too was waiting.

Half an hour, perhaps an hour, passed.  My ears became trained to all sounds that were not absolutely deadened by the roar of the wind.  I heard the crash of falling boughs in the wood, the more distant but unchanging thunder of the sea, the sharp spitting of the rain upon the stone walk.  And I heard the opening of the window by the side of which I was leaning.

I was only just in time.  Through the raised sash there came a hand, holding a packet of some sort, and out of the darkness came another hand eagerly stretched out to receive it.  I brushed it ruthlessly aside, tore the packet from the fingers which suddenly strove to retain it, and with my other hand I caught the arm a little above the wrist.  I heard the flying footsteps of my fellow-watcher, but I did not even turn round.  A fierce joy was in my heart.  Now I was to know.  The veil of mystery which had hung over the doings at Braster was to be swept aside.  I stooped down till my eyes were within a few inches of the hand.  I passed my fingers over it.  I felt the ring—­

Then I remember only that mad headlong flight back across the park, where the very air seemed full of sobbing, mocking voices, and the ground beneath my feet swayed and heaved.  I could not even think coherently.  I heard the motor go tearing down the road past me, and come to a standstill at the turn.  Still I had no thought of any danger.  It never occurred to me to leave the footpath and make my way back to the “Brand,” as I might well have done, by a more circuitous route.  I kept on the footpath, and just as I reached the little iron gate which led into the spinney, I felt a man’s arm suddenly flung around my neck, and with a jerk I was thrown almost off my feet.