abruptly. "I want to ask
you a question, Blanche."

They stepped off the carriage road on to the grass, and, walking on a
few paces, stood together at the exact spot from which Varick, on
Christmas Eve, had looked at the house before him with such exultant
eyes.

Three weeks ago Wyndfell Hall had appeared kindly and welcoming, as well
as mysteriously beautiful, with its old diamond-paned windows all aglow.
Now, in the wintry daylight, the ancient dwelling house still looked
mysteriously beautiful; but there was something cold, menacing, forlorn
in its appearance. The windows looked like blind eyes....

He turned on her suddenly, and held out the telegram she had received
that morning.

"One of the servants picked this up on the breakfast table and brought
it to me. What the devil does it mean? If Mark Gifford wanted to see you
why couldn't he come here?"

Blanche looked at him dumbly. Had her life depended on her speaking she
could not have spoken just then.

He went on: "Have you seen Gifford? Did he say anything about me?"

He uttered the words with a kind of breathless haste. She had the
painful feeling that he wanted to put her in the wrong, to quarrel with
her. Even as he spoke he was tearing the telegram into small pieces, and
casting them down on to the neat, well-kept grass path.

"I suspect I know the business he came about--" He was speaking quietly,
collectedly, now, and she felt that he was making a great effort to
speak calmly and confidently.

"I don't think, Lionel, that you can know," she answered at last, in an
almost inaudible voice.

"Well, let me tell you what it is that I suspect," he said.

There was a long pause. He was looking at her warily, wondering,
evidently, as to how far he dared confide in her. And that look of his
made her feel sick and faint.

"I suspect," he said at last, "that Gifford came to tell you a
cock-and-bull story concocted by my wife's companion, a woman called
Julia Pigchalke."

"Yes, Lionel, you have guessed right."

It was an unutterable relief that he thus made the way easy for her; a
relief--but she now knew that what Gifford had told her was true.

"He wants me to get everyone away from here to-day," she went on, in a
tone so low that he could scarcely hear her.

"Away from here? To-day?" he repeated, startled.

"Yes, away before to-morrow midday." She moistened her dry lips with
her tongue.

"I am the victim of a foul conspiracy!" he exclaimed.