table-cloth was now tightly clenched, and she had a difficulty in breathing.  The one strange point in her conduct was that although she looked towards the door like Sir Charles Fosbrook, there was more of suspense in the look than of the eagerness of welcome.  The butler, however, had no news of Major Lashley to announce.  He merely presented the compliments of Mr. Gibson Jerkley who had been caught in the storm near the Quarry House and ten miles from his home.  Mr. Jerkley prayed for supper and a dry suit of clothes.

“And a bed too,” said Resilda, with a flush of colour in her cheeks, and begging Sir Charles’ permission she rose from the table.  Sir Charles was disappointed by the mention of a strange name.  Mr. Mardale, however, to whom that loud knocking upon the door had been void of suggestion, now became alert.  He looked with a strange anxiety after his daughter, an anxiety which surprised Fosbrook, to whom this man of wheels and little toys had seemed lacking in the natural affections.

“And a bed too,” repeated Mr. Mardale doubtfully, “to be sure!  To be sure!” And though he went into the hall to welcome his visitor, it was not altogether without reluctance.

Mr. Gibson Jerkley was a man of about thirty years.  He had a brown open personable countenance, a pair of frank blue eyes, and the steady restful air of a man who has made his account with himself, and who neither speaks to win praise nor is at pains to escape dislike.  Sir Charles Fosbrook was from the first taken with the man, though he spoke little with him for the moment.  For being tired with his long journey from London, he retired shortly to his room.

But however tired he was, Sir Charles found that it was quite impossible for him to sleep.  The cracking of the rain upon his windows, the groaning trees in the park, and the wail of the wind among the chimneys and about the corners of the house were no doubt for something in a Londoner’s sleeplessness.  But the mysterious disappearance of Major Lashley was at the bottom of it.  He thought again of the pond.  He imagined a violent kidnapping and his fancies went to work at devising motives.  Some quarrel long ago in the crowded city of Tangier and now brought to a tragical finish amongst the oaks and fields of England.  Perhaps a Moor had travelled over seas for his vengeance and found his way from village to village like that Baracen lady of old times.  And when he had come to this point of his reflections, he heard a light rapping upon his door.  He got out of bed and opened it.  He saw Mr. Gibson Jerkley standing on the threshold with a candle in one hand and a finger of the other at his lip.

“I saw alight beneath your door,” said Jerkley, and Sir Charles made room for him to enter.  He closed the door cautiously, and setting his candle down upon a chest of drawers, said without any hesitation: