“The Red House is certainly charming,” he said.

“Charming.  Quite charming.  And it is not as if Mr. Ablett’s appearance were in any way undistinguished.  Quite the contrary.  I’m sure you agree with me?”

Antony said that he had never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Ablett.

“Yes.  And quite the centre of the literary and artistic world.  So desirable in every way.”

She gave a deep sigh, and communed with herself for a little.  Antony was, about to snatch the opportunity of leaving, when Mrs. Norbury began again.

“And then there’s this scapegrace brother of his.  He was perfectly frank with me, Mr. Gillingham.  He would be.  He told me of this brother, and I told him that I was quite certain it would make no difference to my daughter’s feelings for him ....  After all, the brother was in Australia.”

“When was this?  Yesterday?” Antony felt that, if Mark had only mentioned it after his brother’s announcement of a personal call at the Red House, this perfect frankness had a good deal of wisdom behind it.

“It couldn’t have been yesterday, Mr. Gillingham.  Yesterday—­” she shuddered, and shook her head.

“I thought perhaps he had been down here in the morning.”

“Oh, no!  There is such a thing, Mr. Gillingham, as being too devoted a lover.  Not in the morning, no.  We both agreed that dear Angela—­Oh, no.  No; the day before yesterday, when he happened to drop in about tea-time.”

It occurred to Antony that Mrs. Norbury had come a long way from her opening statement that Mark and Miss Norbury were practically engaged.  She was now admitting that dear Angela was not to be rushed, that dear Angela had, indeed, no heart for the match at all.

“The day before yesterday.  As it happened, dear Angela was out.  Not that it mattered.  He was driving to Middleston.  He hardly had time for a cup of tea, so that even if she had been in—­”

Antony nodded absently.  This was something new.  Why did Mark go to Middleston the day before yesterday?  But, after all, why shouldn’t he?  A hundred reasons unconnected with the death of Robert might have taken him there.

He got up to go.  He wanted to be alone—­alone, at least, with Bill.  Mrs. Norbury had given him many things to think over, but the great outstanding fact which had emerged was this:  that Cayley had reason to hate Mark,—­Mrs. Norbury had given him that reason.  To hate?  Well, to be jealous, anyhow.  But that was enough.

“You see,” he said to Bill, as they walked back, “we know that Cayley is perjuring himself and risking himself over this business, and that must be for one of two reasons.  Either to save Mark or to endanger him.  That is to say, he is either whole-heartedly for him or whole-heartedly against him.  Well, now we know that he is against him, definitely against him.”

“But, I say, you know,” protested Bill, “one doesn’t necessarily try to ruin one’s rival in love.”