nt the
night, late in the afternoon. The marks were still there when I returned
this morning, because I noticed them."

"The same marks?" the Colonel asked, frowning.

"Without a doubt the same marks," Julian replied. "In one place, where
we skidded a little, I recognized them."

Colonel Henderson smiled a little more naturally.

"I begin to have hopes," he acknowledged frankly, "that I have been
drawn into another mare's nest. Nevertheless, I am bound to ask you
this question, Miss Abbeway. Did you leave your room at all during last
night?"

"Not unless I walked in my sleep," she answered, "but you had better
make enquiries of my aunt, and Parkins, our maid. They sleep one on
either side of me."

"You would not object," the Colonel continued, more cheerfully still,
"if my people thought well to have your things searched?"

"Not in the least," Catherine replied coolly, "only if you unpack
my trunks, I beg that you will allow my maid to fold and unfold my
clothes."

"I do not think," Colonel Henderson said to Lord Maltenby, "that I have
any more questions to ask Miss Abbeway at present."

"In which case we will return to the drawing-room," the Earl suggested
a little stiffly. "Miss Abbeway, you will, I trust, accept my apologies
for our intrusion upon you. I regret that any guest of mine should have
been subjected to a suspicion so outrageous."

Catherine laughed softly.

"Not outrageous really, dear Lord Maltenby," she said. "I do not quite
know of what I have been suspected, but I am sure Colonel Henderson
would not have asked me these questions if it had not been his duty."

"If you had not been a guest in this house, Miss Abbeway," the Colonel
assured her, with some dignity, "I should have had you arrested first
and questioned afterwards."

"You come of a race of men, Colonel Henderson, who win wars," she
declared graciously. "You know your own mind."

"You will be joining us presently, I hope?" Lord Maltenby enquired from
the door.

"In a very few minutes," she promised.

The door closed behind them. Catherine waited for a moment, then she
sank a little hysterically into a chair.

"I cannot avoid a touch of melodrama, you see," she confessed. "It goes
with my character and nationality. But seriously, now that that is over,
I do not consider myself in the slightest danger. The poor fellow who
was shot this morning belongs to a different order of people. He has
been a spy over here since the beg