“I—” She broke off, caught between her own emotional dilemma and his dark eyes watching her face. They seemed to see into her soul.

“You must tell me the truth, Mrs. Atwood. A lie won’t serve you or me.”

When she spoke, her voice was husky with shame. “I—I was hurt that she wasn’t coming for the weekend, I told myself she was happy, while I was wretched. There had been no letters from Humphrey for weeks, and I’d just received word that he was being listed as missing. I knew what that meant—he was dead but they hadn’t found his body yet. I hadn’t even told my mother—I could hardly bear to believe it myself! And to have Eleanor let me down when I’d been counting so on her company—to go larking off with someone, half drunk with champagne, most likely, sounding quite unlike herself—it was—I couldn’t tell her about Humphrey then, could I? I was angry—angry and upset. I didn’t care to know, I didn’t want to know what she was doing! I hoped she’d end her week just as wretched as I was—” She stopped and then went on almost against her will. “That’s why I refused to be worried when she didn’t come back or call me. I was still angry—I told myself she wasn’t a friend at all, it was better if she went her own way. She’d gone to Scotland and could stay there forever, as far as I cared. Then I got word that Humphrey was alive and safe, and I didn’t want to think about anything else—I didn’t want to remember how badly I’d behaved.”

She regarded him with hurt, frightened eyes. “If she died that night—it was my fault, in a way. For letting her down. For not worrying when she didn’t call at the end of the week, or come down, or write. I punished her for being happy when I wasn’t, and then I put it all out of my mind, deliberately.”

AS HE DROVE toward London, Rutledge tried to set out in logical detail what he had learned from Mrs. Atwood and her servants.

Hamish said, “There’s still no name to put with the Gray woman’s companion.”

“No. But there’s a connection now between Eleanor Gray and Scotland. The wrong side of Scotland, but it’s a start.”

“Aye, but it would ha’ been better if there was no connection at all. If she’d gone to America.”

“We have to find this man Burns if we can.”

“Aye, but there’s no proof Eleanor Gray went to Scotland with him!”