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Gordon went off and pretended to undress, "to make sure," he said, "that our visitor doesn't arrive too early."

It is extraordinary what a lot you can hear, even in a country house, when you sit for an hour in the dark on the alert. Expresses whistled through Paston Oatvile; and one goods train only passed its signals after several stoppages, each of which meant a repetition of the musical clink-clink-clink which goods trucks make as they hit one another. A dog somewhere at the back had a fit of loneliness, and howled; cats told their nightly tale of love and hate. Coals fell out of distant grates; the woodwork creaked uncannily at intervals. But at no moment was there a step in the passage: nor was any hand laid on the door of the room opposite. They both felt cramped and overwatched when one o'clock sounded from the belfry of the old stables, and they were free to creep back to their beds.

"I say," whispered Reeves, "why not come into my room and have a whisky-and-soda before we turn in?"

"Oh," replied Gordon, "didn't Carmichael tell you? We are not to go into your sitting-room on any account."

"The old brute!" said Mordaunt Reeves. "But I suppose he knows what he's doing."