le's leave
for you on his own terms."

Poor Lady Glyde's eyes filled with tears.

"Marian never left me before," she said, "without bidding me good-bye."

"She would have bid you good-bye this time," returned Sir Percival, "if
she had not been afraid of herself and of you. She knew you would try
to stop her, she knew you would distress her by crying. Do you want to
make any more objections? If you do, you must come downstairs and ask
questions in the dining-room. These worries upset me. I want a glass
of wine."

He left us suddenly.

His manner all through this strange conversation had been very unlike
what it usually was. He seemed to be almost as nervous and fluttered,
every now and then, as his lady herself. I should never have supposed
that his health had been so delicate, or his composure so easy to upset.

I tried to prevail on Lady Glyde to go back to her room, but it was
useless. She stopped in the passage, with the look of a woman whose
mind was panic-stricken.

"Something has happened to my sister!" she said.

"Remember, my lady, what surprising energy there is in Miss Halcombe,"
I suggested. "She might well make an effort which other ladies in her
situation would be unfit for. I hope and believe there is nothing
wrong--I do indeed."

"I must follow Marian," said her ladyship, with the same panic-stricken
look. "I must go where she has gone, I must see that she is
alive and well with my own eyes. Come! come down with me to Sir
Percival."

I hesitated, fearing that my presence might be considered an intrusion.
I attempted to represent this to her ladyship, but she was deaf to me.
She held my arm fast enough to force me to go downstairs with her, and
she still clung to me with all the little strength she had at the
moment when I opened the dining-room door.

Sir Percival was sitting at the table with a decanter of wine before
him. He raised the glass to his lips as we went in and drained it at a
draught. Seeing that he looked at me angrily when he put it down
again, I attempted to make some apology for my accidental presence in
the room.

"Do you suppose there are any secrets going on here?" he broke out
suddenly; "there are none--there is nothing underhand, nothing kept
from you or from any one." After speaking those strange words loudly
and sternly, he filled himself another glass of wine and asked Lady
Glyde what she wanted of him.

"If my sister is fit to travel I am fit to tra