“If I could help you in any other way,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, “I should be very glad to try.”

She turned upon him quickly.

“How can you help me, or any one,” she demanded, “unless you can take me away from these people?  Listen!  Until a few months ago I had scarcely seen my stepmother.  She fetched me away from the convent, took me to Paris for some clothes, and since then I have done nothing but go to parties and houses where the people seem all to have fine names, but behave horribly.  I know that I am rich.  They told me that before I left the convent, so that I might be a little prepared, but is that any reason why every man, old and young, should say foolish things to me, and pretend that they have fallen in love, when I know all the time that it is my fortune they are thinking of.  And my stepmother speaks of marrying me as though I were a piece of merchandise, to be disposed of to the highest bidder.  I do not like her friends.  I do not like the way they live.  I have never liked Major Forrest.  Last night your lodger and another man came to the Hall.  They asked questions about Lord Ronald.  They asked questions and they were told lies.  I am sure of it.  It got on my nerves.  I thought I should shriek.  Major Forrest said that it was he who drove Lord Ronald into Lynn, thirty-five miles away, at six o’clock in the morning.  I am sure that he could not have driven the car a hundred yards.”

“Good God!” Andrew muttered.

“I am sure of it,” Jeanne continued.  “Two days before Lord Ronald disappeared, he wanted the car to take us over to Sandringham, and he could not find the chauffeur.  It seems that he was down at the public-house at the village, and he came back intoxicated.  Lord Ronald was angry, and he sent the man away.  The car was there in the coach-house, and there was no one who could drive it.”

“But,” Andrew protested, “Major Forrest was seen returning in the car.”

“He was pulled up the avenue in it,” Jeanne answered.  “How he got the car there I don’t know, but I do not believe that it had ever been any further.”

“Why do you not believe that?” Andrew asked.

She leaned towards him.

“Because,” she said, “I was up early.  The car was there at eight o’clock, alone, just outside the gates.  There were the marks where it had come down from the house, but there were no marks on the other side.  I am sure that it had been no further.  I felt the engine and it was cold.  I do not believe that it had been started at all.”

Andrew was looking very serious.

“Then,” he said, “if Lord Ronald was not taken to Lynn that morning, what do you suppose has become of him?”

“I do not know,” she cried.  “I am afraid.  I dare not stay there.  They all look at one another and leave off talking when I come into the room unexpectedly.  They all seem as though some trouble were hanging over them.  I am afraid to be there, Mr. Andrew.”