“They’ve all been searched, and they’re not big enough to hold a large-sized dog,” said Dick. “If you want to be helpful you can come up to the Manor and put my correspondence in order. I am afraid it has been neglected in these days, and there are a lot of bills and things to be entered up.”

He had no real need for her, he thought, but whilst she was in the neighbourhood he was anxious that she should be under his eye. She may have suspected something of this, but she gratefully accepted the offer.

“Drive up,” he warned her; “keep to the main road and the main drive. Don’t stop for anybody, however well you know them, and take no notice if you hear somebody shout at you.”

In spite of her anxiety she laughed.

“How very alarming that sounds!”

After he had gone she busied herself with the affairs of the house, arranged the dinner for that night, and was on the point of leaving, when somebody rang the front-door bell. She was putting on her hat before the mirror in her bedroom when the maid came up.

“Miss Wenner?” cried Leslie, aghast, and only then did she remember that at Arthur’s request she had written inviting the girl to spend the weekend with them.

Here was a complication she had not foreseen. And yet, in the space between her room and the hall, she had made up her mind that, if there was one thing she welcomed at this moment, it was the society of a woman.

Mary Wenner was in the hall and greeted her as effusively as if they had been bosom friends, though in truth Leslie scarcely knew the girl.

“My dear, I’m so glad to be back in this lovely old country!” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, as I was driving past dear old Fossaway Manor, how perfectly peaceful everything is!”

Leslie could have screamed! Peaceful!

“Perhaps it isn’t quite as peaceful as it looks, Miss Wenner,” she said dryly.

“Call me Mary,” begged the girl. “I do so dislike formalism and standoffishness! It will be so awkward if Arthur calls me by my name and you call me Miss – I mean – ?”

“Well, I’ll call you Mary with pleasure,” said Leslie. “I think you know my name?”

“A beautiful name,” said the ecstatic Miss Wenner. “The only thing against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?”

“I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her room.

She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news.

“Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back tonight,” she said. “Have you seen the newspapers?”

Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously.