“You went to Carlisle, of course, when you heard that?”

“I did, sir, but I am sorry to say I could find no further trace of them.”

“You inquired at the railway?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And at the different inns?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you left the statement I wrote for you at the police station?”

“I did, sir.”

“Well, my friend, you have done all you could, and I have done all I could, and there the matter must rest till further notice.  We have played our trump cards, Mr. Hartright,” continued the old gentleman when the servant had withdrawn.  “For the present, at least, the women have outmanoeuvred us, and our only resource now is to wait till Sir Percival Glyde comes here on Monday next.  Won’t you fill your glass again?  Good bottle of port, that—­sound, substantial, old wine.  I have got better in my own cellar, though.”

We returned to the drawing-room—­the room in which the happiest evenings of my life had been passed—­the room which, after this last night, I was never to see again.  Its aspect was altered since the days had shortened and the weather had grown cold.  The glass doors on the terrace side were closed, and hidden by thick curtains.  Instead of the soft twilight obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of lamplight now dazzled my eyes.  All was changed—­in-doors and out all was changed.

Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together at the card-table—­ Mrs. Vesey took her customary chair.  There was no restraint on the disposal of their evening, and I felt the restraint on the disposal of mine all the more painfully from observing it.  I saw Miss Fairlie lingering near the music-stand.  The time had been when I might have joined her there.  I waited irresolutely—­I knew neither where to go nor what to do next.  She cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of music suddenly from the stand, and came towards me of her own accord.

“Shall I play some of those little melodies of Mozart’s which you used to like so much?” she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking down at it while she spoke.

Before I could thank her she hastened to the piano.  The chair near it, which I had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty.  She struck a few chords—­then glanced round at me—­then looked back again at her music.

“Won’t you take your old place?” she said, speaking very abruptly and in very low tones.

“I may take it on the last night,” I answered.

She did not reply—­she kept her attention riveted on the music—­ music which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in former times, without the book.  I only knew that she had heard me, I only knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the red spot on the cheek that was nearest to me fade out, and the face grow pale all over.

“I am very sorry you are going,” she said, her voice almost sinking to a whisper, her eyes looking more and more intently at the music, her fingers flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish energy which I had never noticed in her before.