"What—what do you mean by that?"
"My lord, I will tell you. Yesterday afternoon, as I was descending to dinner, old Katie met me on the stairs and with a frightened face told me that she had made an important discovery that she wished to communicate to me. I directed her to go to my dressing room and wait there until my return from dinner, when I fully intended to hasten at once to her side and hear what she had to say—"
"Some 'mare's nest' of a new rumor concerning the murderer of Ailsie Dunbar, I suppose," said the viscount, with a feeble attempt to sneer.
"No, my lord, I rather think it was something concerning my own safety. But I never knew; for you may recollect that on last evening your lordship detained me in conversation some time after dinner. When I went to my dressing room Katie was not there. I thought she had grown sleepy and had gone to bed, and so I felt no anxiety on that score. But this morning, my lord, she is missing. She is nowhere to be found."
"Oh, I dare say she has gone visiting some of the country people with whom she has picked acquaintance. She will turn up all right by and by."
"I fear not, my lord."
"Why do you 'fear not'?"
"Because there are other very suspicious circumstances connected with the disappearance of Katie, that since her evanishment have recurred to my memory, or been brought to knowledge."
"Pray, may one ask without indiscretion, what these suspicious circumstances are?"
"Certainly, my lord; it was to report them that I came here. First, then, last evening on my return towards my own room I was a little startled by hearing a scream, quickly smothered, and then a fall and a scuffling, soon silenced. These sounds came from the apartment of Mrs. Dugald—"