dless words of
thought. "A bad move, my friend, a very bad move. One may not recognize
a man's voice from a simple 'Sh-h-h!' but when he steps out of a library
with a black mud-spot on the toe of his house shoes and a green smudge
on his cuff----"

He stopped and crouched back under the trees, and was very, very still.

Through the darkness a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen, the soft
falling of a foot, the careful passage of a body between lines of
leaves.

Some one was advancing cautiously toward that darkened and opened
window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE VIEW HALLOO

That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek had
not the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at her
temerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after that
experience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he therefore
remained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, and
waited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feeling
of disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as this
case had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltry
manner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as,
naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolve
itself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interview
with the General, and then making capital of the information thus
obtained.

The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his own
peculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did not
succeed in passing between hedge and coppice without the betraying
rustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circumstance the
mischief which followed was formed.

The shrubbery where Ailsa was waiting lay but a rope's cast distant from
the spot where Cleek now crouched; and as if the ill-luck which had
balked him once before to-night was intent upon flooring him at all
quarters, he had no sooner grasped the unwelcome fact--made manifest by
the clearer sound of the approaching body as it came into closer
range--that the steps were advancing in a direct line with that
shrubbery than a thin, eager whisper pierced the stillness.

It was the voice of Miss Lorne, saying cautiously, yet distinctly:

"Goodness gracious! Why, Purviss! You don't mean to tell me it's you?"

Purviss! Not Lady Clavering, but Geoff Clavering's old valet, Purviss?
Here was a facer to b