"You are short of breath," she said, smiling in a curiously impersonal way. "Run back to the house. It will do you good."
"All right. You run with me. The first gong will go any minute, and we've got to eat, you know, even though the pater is dead."
It was an unhappy allusion. Sylvia stiffened.
"My poor uncle's death did not seem to trouble you greatly this morning," she said. "Kindly leave me now. I'll follow soon. I am waiting for Mr. Trenholme, who wants to show me some sketches."
"A nice time to look at sketches, upon my word! And who's Trenholme, I'd like to know?"
Sylvia bethought herself. Certainly an explanation was needful, and her feminine wit supplied one instantly.
"Mr. Trenholme was sent here by the Scotland Yard people," she said, a trifle less frigidly. "I suppose we shall all be mixed up in the inquiry the detectives are holding, and it seems that Mr. Trenholme was at work in the park this morning when that awful affair took place. Unknown to me, I was near the spot where he was sketching before breakfast, and one of the detectives, the little one, says it is important that—that the fact should be proved. Mr. Trenholme called to tell me just what happened. So you see there is nothing in his action that should annoy any one—you least of any, since you were away from home at the time."
"But why has he mizzled over the wall?"
"He is staying at the White Horse Inn, and has gone to fetch the drawings."