wn her over since
then and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the daughter of the head
gamekeeper. Rachel, who is a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh
temperament, had a sharp touch of brain fever, and goes about the house
now--or did until yesterday--like a black-eyed shadow of her former
self. That was our first drama at Hurlstone, but a second one came to
drive it from our minds, and it was prefaced by the disgrace and
dismissal of butler Brunton.

"'This is how it came about. I have said that the man was intelligent,
and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it seems to have led
to an insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the least
concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to which this would carry him
until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.

"'I have said that the house is a rambling one. One night last week--on
Thursday night, to be more exact--I found that I could not sleep, having
foolishly taken a cup of strong _cafe noir_ after my dinner. After
struggling against it until two in the morning I felt that it was quite
hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with the intention of continuing
a novel which I was reading. The book, however, had been left in the
billiard-room, so I pulled on my dressing-gown and started off to get
it.

"'In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend a flight of
stairs, and then to cross the head of a passage which led to the library
and the gun-room. You can imagine my surprise when as I looked down this
corridor I saw a glimmer of light coming from the open door of the
library. I had myself extinguished the lamp and closed the door before
coming to bed. Naturally, my first thought was of burglars. The
corridors at Hurlstone have their walls largely decorated with trophies
of old weapons. From one of these I picked a battle-axe, and then,
leaving my candle behind me, I crept on tip-toe down the passage and
peeped in at the open door.

"'Brunton, the butler, was in the library. He was sitting, fully
dressed, in an easy chair, with a slip of paper, which looked like a
map, upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in deep
thought. I stood, dumb with astonishment, watching him from the
darkness. A small taper on the edge of the table shed a feeble light,
which sufficed to show me that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as I
looked, he rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at the side
he unlocked it and drew out one of