"8. We get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage, the existence of which is unknown to my lady. In one of the rooms we find her portrait."
"9. George is frightened at the storm. His conduct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening."
"10. George quite himself again the following morning. I propose leaving Audley Court immediately; he prefers remaining till the evening."
"11. We go out fishing. George leaves me to go to the Court."
"12. The last positive information I can obtain of him in Essex is at the Court, where the servant says he thinks Mr. Talboys told him he would go and look for my lady in the grounds."
"13. I receive information about him at the station which may or may not be correct."
"14. I hear of him positively once more at Southampton, where, according to his father-in-law, he had been for an hour on the previous night."
"15. The telegraphic message."
When Robert Audley had completed this brief record, which he drew up with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection, alterations and erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the written page.
At last he read it carefully over, stopping at some of the numbered paragraphs, and marking some of them with a pencil cross; then he folded the sheet of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in that very pigeon-hole into which he had thrust Alicia's letter—the pigeon-hole marked Important.