“Everything, I should think,” he answered drily. “Stelfox’s account is, that he found me lying on the sofa insensible, when he came in to clear away the dessert on that evening. He examined the decanters on the table, and finding that I had drunk very little wine, came to the conclusion that what little I had taken had been tampered with. He succeeded in rousing me, but left me for the night in such a drowsy condition that he came back again after I was in bed, to find out if I was all right. His suspicions were then aroused by finding that someone had been in the room, so he woke me with difficulty, told me to dress, and made me go downstairs.”
“Ah!” interrupted Chris quickly, “that was what I heard, what I almost saw. Well, what then?”
Dick went on:
“By the time we got downstairs I had grown so drowsy that when he left me for a minute I tumbled off to sleep again. He had no idea, he said, at that time of going further with me than the garden, where he thought the fresh air would revive me, while he went upstairs again to make investigations. But my continued drowsiness alarmed him so much that he thought it best to take me first at once into the open air. When we had got outside, however, he found that I was again in a state of stupor, so he lifted me up and carried me bodily across the garden towards the beach, where he thought that he could revive me effectually by splashing the sea-water in my face. In the meantime he saw smoke and flames coming from the east wing, and at once made up his mind that I could not go back. He left me, therefore, having brought me to myself, while he borrowed a horse and cart from a man he knew; driving slowly, and resting frequently, so as to spin out the time, we went towards Ashford, where we arrived in plenty of time for him to put me into the first morning train for London. He telegraphed to a brother of his to meet me, and he returned himself to Wyngham in time to escape awkward questions; for in the commotion caused by the fire he had not been missed.”
“I don’t understand Stelfox,” said Chris, doubtfully. “I have never been able to make out whether he was a good man who was sorry for you, and was kind to you, or a bad one who found it to his interest to serve Mr. Bradfield in his wicked treatment of you.”
“You’d better ask him,” said Dick, smiling. “But he says he doesn’t know himself. Anyhow, he’s been a good friend to me. There is no piece of good fortune, from my recovery of speech down to my escape, that I do not owe to him. So when he tells me not to look too closely into his motives, I take care to humour him.”
“But I should like to understand,” persisted Chris. “He could have let you out long ago if he had liked then?”
“He says it would not have paid either him nor me. He wanted me to remain here until he had succeeded in finding out who I was, and what that rascal Bradfield’s motive was in keeping me shut up. But he hasn’t been able to find out yet, and beyond the fact that I now know my surname, a piece of information which I owe to you, I am as much in the dark as I was when he first shut me up.”
Chris mused for a few minutes without speaking. Then she said, half to herself: