ual.
What he told me brought me quickly to my senses and out of bed. Nurse
Forrester had been called at seven o'clock, but had not responded. Nor
could the maid open the door, for it was locked. A quarter of an hour
later the housekeeper and Jane Bond had loudly summoned her without
receiving any reply. Then they called me.

"I could only direct that the door should be forced open as speedily as
possible, and we were engaged in this task when Mannering, my medical
man, who shot with us to-day, arrived to see Mary. I told him what had
happened. He went in to look at my girl, and felt satisfied that she was
holding her own well--indeed, he thought her stronger; and just as
he told me so the door into the Grey Room yielded. Mannering and my
housekeeper, Mrs. Forbes, entered the room, while Masters, Fred Caunter,
my footman, who had broken down the lock, and I remained outside.

"The doctor presently called me, and I went in. Nurse Forrester was
apparently lying awake in bed, but she was not awake. She slept the
sleep of death. Her eyes were open, but glazed, and she was already
cold. Mannering declared that she had been dead for a good many hours.
Yet, save for a slight but hardly unnatural pallor, not a trace of death
marked the poor little creature. An expression of wonder seemed to sit
on her features, but otherwise she was looking much as I had last seen
her, when she said 'Good-night.' Everything appeared to be orderly in
the room. It was now flooded with the first light of a sunny morning,
for she had drawn her blind up and thrown her window wide open. The poor
lady passed out of life without a sound or signal to indicate trouble,
for in the silence of night Jane Bond must have heard any alarm had she
raised one. To me it seemed impossible to believe that we gazed upon
a corpse. But so it was, though, as a matter of form, the doctor took
certain measures to restore her. But animation was not suspended; it had
passed beyond recall.

"There was held a post-mortem examination, and an inquest, of course;
and Mannering, who felt deep professional interest, asked a friend
from Plymouth to conduct the examination. Their report astounded all
concerned and crowned the mystery, for not a trace of any physical
trouble could be discovered to explain Nurse Forrester's death. She was
thin, but organically sound in every particular, nor could the slightest
trace of poison be reported. Life had simply left her without any
physica