Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, upright piece of inlaid mahogany furniture, and unlocking a drawer, took from it an envelope. Having opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on which were printed the words: "Concession going well" and the signature "G."
Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and she flushed. Even she realised the significance of that "G."
"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write down from my dictation certain notes, and hand them, together with this telegram, to the Commissioner of Police, he may be trusted to do the rest."
CHAPTER XXV
FIVE quiet weeks slipped by—weeks full of outward, as well as of inward, happiness at The Chase and at Freshley.
Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and then, without even seeing Laura, had gone away again almost at once. She was still away when there took place early in December the gathering together, for the first time for many years, of a big shooting party at Knowlton Abbey.
Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely spent a week in London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, of whose very existence she was unaware, opined that she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead a year, and some of these same gossips thought it rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be going to stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood was over. But the kinder of the busybodies reminded one another that Lord St. Amant had known the mistress of The Chase from childhood, and being, as he was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had thought it would cheer up the poor lady to have a little change.
Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone up alone to London, and Oliver, after two days, followed her. But he had not waited to escort her back, as his mother expected him to do. He returned the day before Laura—in fact she was away a week, he only four days.
The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura had gone up to town to get a few new clothes, but she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not exactly conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at Knowlton Abbey.