“Of your ring, Mr. Arnold.”

“Of —­ my —­ ring?”

And he looked at his ring-finger, as if he could not understand the import of Hugh’s words.

“Of the ring you lent me to decipher,” explained Hugh.

“Do you suppose I do not understand you, Mr. Sutherland?  A ring which has been in the family for two hundred years at least!  Robbed of it?  In my house?  You must have been disgracefully careless, Mr. Sutherland.  You have lost it.”

“Mr. Arnold,” said Hugh, with dignity, “I am above using such a subterfuge, even if it were not certain to throw suspicion where it was undeserved.”

Mr. Arnold was a gentleman, as far as his self-importance allowed.  He did not apologize for what he had said, but he changed his manner at once.

“I am quite bewildered, Mr. Sutherland.  It is a very annoying piece of news —­ for many reasons.”

“I can show you where I laid it —­ in the safest corner in my room, I assure you.”

“Of course, of course.  It is enough you say so.  We must not keep the dinner waiting now.  But after dinner I shall have all the servants up, and investigate the matter thoroughly.”

“So,” thought Hugh with himself, “some one will be made a felon of, because the cursed dead go stalking about this infernal house at midnight, gathering their own old baubles.  No, that will not do.  I must at least tell Mr. Arnold what I know of the doings of the night.”

So Mr. Arnold must still wait for his dinner; or rather, which was really of more consequence in the eyes of Mr. Arnold, the dinner must be kept waiting for him.  For order and custom were two of Mr. Arnold’s divinities; and the economy of his whole nature was apt to be disturbed by any interruption of their laws, such as the postponement of dinner for ten minutes.  He was walking towards the door, and turned with some additional annoyance when Hugh addressed him again: 

“One moment, Mr. Arnold, if you please.”

Mr. Arnold merely turned and waited.

“I fear I shall in some degree forfeit your good opinion by what I am about to say, but I must run the risk.”

Mr. Arnold still waited.

“There is more about the disappearance of the ring than I can understand.”

“Or I either, Mr. Sutherland.”

“But I must tell you what happened to myself, the night that I kept watch in Lady Euphrasia’s room.”

“You said you slept soundly.”

“So I did, part of the time.”

“Then you kept back part of the truth?”

“I did.”

“Was that worthy of you?”

“I thought it best:  I doubted myself.”

“What has caused you to change your mind now?”

“This event about the ring.”

“What has that to do with it?  How do you even know that it was taken on that night?”

“I do not know; for till this morning I had not opened the place where it lay:  I only suspect.”