"They were found this morning within half an hour,
I understand, of your wedding. And it was only owing
to the quickness of a lady named Miss Forsyth --
assisted, I am bound to say, by Mr. Hayley of the Foreign
Office, who is, I believe, a relation of Mrs. Guthrie --
that they were found at all. The man who came
to fetch them away did get off scot free -- luckily leaving
them, and his motor, behind him."

"The man who came to fetch them away?" The
woman sitting opposite to the speaker repeated the
words in a wondering tone -- then, very decidedly,
"There has been some extraordinary mistake!" she exclaimed.
"I know every inch of my house, and so I
can assure you" -- she bent forward a little in her earnestness
and excitement -- "I can assure you that it's
quite _impossible_ that there was anything of the sort in
the Trellis House without my knowing it!"

"Did you ever go into your servant's bedroom?"
asked Mr. Reynolds quietly.

Major Guthrie felt the hand he was holding in his
suddenly tremble, and his wife made a nervous movement,
as if she wanted to draw it away from his protecting
grasp.

A feeling of terror -- of sheer, unreasoning terror --
had swept over her. _Anna?_

"No," she faltered, but her voice was woefully
changed. "No, I never had occasion to go into my old
servant's bedroom. But oh, I cannot believe----" and
then she stopped. She had remembered Anna's curious
unwillingness to leave the Trellis House this morning,
even to attend her beloved mistress's wedding.
She, and Rose too, had been hurt, and had shown that
they were hurt, at old Anna's obstinacy.

[[326]]

p325 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p326w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p327

v?