"Yes," he replied hesitatingly. "I told you I had a lunatic—a fierce maniac—whom I am taking charge of downstairs, when I know that by rights he should be in the padded cell of an asylum."
Again did the young man perceive that his companion was lying. His manner was that of a man who is telling a falsehood on which much depends.
"I tell you——" he began, but at that moment an interruption occurred.
The door was thrown open roughly, and a man entered. Laurence recognised him as the person who had played the double part of janitor and market-woman. He was a man of an unprepossessing, not to say criminal, type, and spoke in a surly tone.
"This bit o' paper were 'anded in by an old man a few minutes ago. To be given to Mr. Laurence at once," the man said.
"Then give it to this gentleman," the doctor replied, and the servant did so.
Laurence seized the roughly twisted note with a trembling hand. What was the meaning of a letter coming to him at the Dene? No one but Lena knew where he was. A glance told him that the words hastily scrawled in pencil on a half-sheet of paper were in Miss Scott's usually distinct handwriting.
And this was the terrible message the note contained:—
"Come at once. The Squire has been murdered!"