"Does Miss Murray wear white to-night?"
"Yes," muttered Sinclair, coming hastily forward.
"Then it may have been she, for as I lay there deciding whether or not to yield to the agreeable somnolence I felt creeping over me, I caught a glimpse of her skirt as she passed out of the room. And that skirt was white—white silk, I suppose you call it. It looked very pretty in the firelight."
Sinclair, turning on his heel, stalked in a dazed way toward the door. To cover this show of abruptness which was quite unusual on his part, I made the effort of my life, and, remarking lightly, "She must have been here looking for the pin her friend has lost," I launched forth into an impromptu dissertation on one of the subjects I knew to be dear to the heart of the bookworm before me, and kept it up, too, till I saw by his brightening eye and suddenly freed manner that he had forgotten the insignificant episode of a minute ago, never in all probability to recall it again. Then I made another effort and released myself with something like deftness from the long-drawn-out argument I saw impending, and, making for the door in my turn, glanced about for Sinclair. So far as I was concerned the question as to who had taken the box from the library was settled.
It was now half-past eight. I made my way from room to room and from group to group, looking for Sinclair. At last I returned to my old post near the library door, and was instantly rewarded by the sight of his figure approaching from a small side passage in company with the butler, Dutton. His face, as he stepped into the full light of the open hall, showed discomposure, but not the extreme distress I had anticipated. Somehow, at sight of it, I found myself seeking the shadow just as he had done a short time before, and it was in one of the recesses made by a row of bay trees that we came face to face.
He gave me one look, then his eyes dropped.
"Miss Camerden has lost a pin from her hair," he impressively explained to me. Then turning to Dutton he nonchalantly remarked. "It must be somewhere in this hall; perhaps you will be good enough to look for it."
"Certainly," replied the man. "I thought she had lost something when I saw her come out of the library a little while ago holding her hand to her hair."
My heart gave a leap, then sank cold and almost pulseless in my breast. In the hum to which all sounds had sunk, I heard Sinclair's voice rise again in the question with which my own mind was full.
"When was that? After Mr. Armstrong went into the room, or before?"