Looking down into the main hall as I ascended the stair I saw Hugh Pitcairn rise from a couch upon which he had been lying and cross to the far window with some suddenness of manner, and knew by instinct that he had realized the talk was not intended for his ears, and had hastily changed his position, like the man of honor that he was.
Finding that the duke had not left his apartment in my absence I crossed to my own room, where I was not alone above five minutes before Nancy joined me.
"Mr. Pitcairn is below, waiting for the duke to affix some signatures," she said; and then:
"Danvers Carmichael has been here, too. He saw an announcement in The Lounger that I was betrothed to his Grace of Borthwicke, and came by to tell me—as you did yourself," she ended, with a smile, "that the wedding would have to take place without his approval."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MURDER
Up to this point there are many events which I have drawn with blurred edges by reason of the distance of time; but from this to the end of my story I have the pettiest details of it in mind, many of them with a horrid distinctness.
On the evening of the twenty-third the Armstrongs held a dance in honor of the marriage of their daughter Jean with one of John Graham's lads, and a number of young folks were bid to dinner before this festivity should begin, Nancy being one of the number. His Grace of Borthwicke and I were asked for the dancing, a courtesy which he declined by reason of his indisposition, as well as from the fact that he was to start for the Highlands in the morning. Almost immediately after our dinner he excused himself to me, saying that an important letter must be got off on the early post. And his breeding was shown in the fact that he allowed no doubt to remain with me that this was any invented excuse to avoid my society, for he stated to whom the epistle was destined, and the need for its immediate sending, a point of conduct which seemed to me gentlemanly in the extreme.
"It's a letter to Pitt," he said.