"Not so impossible, dear lady. Sir Edgar himself said that he had come to meet Lady Margaret."
In the shadow of the window curtain Cleek puckered up his brows and thoughtfully pinched his chin. So that was the young gentleman's explanation of his presence in the grounds, was it? Plausible enough, though it differed greatly from the explanation he had tendered to Lieutenant Deland. However, that was only to be expected.... After all, it might be merely a red herring drawn across the path. Surely, the station was the right place to await a fiancée's return from abroad, not the grounds of her home—late at night! But then he had little belief in the young man's guilt, and there was every possibility that Sir Edgar had followed in his mother's footsteps with a view to finding out her purpose.
For that Lady Brenton had been in that vicinity, Cleek felt almost certain despite her vehement denial. The bond between mother and son was beyond all doubt a very close one. It might well be that the two had played at cross purposes and been bent on shielding one another. But he had not thought that Sir Edgar——
Gunga Dall's soft, purring voice broke in upon his thoughts, and Cleek pricked up his ears to listen.
"It was his mention of Lady Margaret that made me wonder whether you, too, had gone for that purpose," the Hindoo went on, "that's how I came to see you there, I suppose——"
"You did not see me there!" she flung back, indignantly. "Really, this is unbearable! I tell you I was not near Cheyne Court that night, Mr. Dall, and I will not stop another second to hear such abominable charges against me! No, please do not follow me, or speak to me, you have done me injury enough this morning with your foolish blundering remark about the scarves."
A moment she stood there irresolute, then turned and sped down the path across the lawn like a fleet shadow. As she went, Cleek heard the sound of a soft, throaty chuckle which came to him as he crouched in his hiding place. Then the padding footsteps followed in Lady Brenton's wake and died away into the silence of the deserted place.
For a moment Cleek sat there, lost in thought. There had been a certain note of truth in the voice of Gunga Dall which told him instinctively that Lady Brenton had been there on that night, deny it as she might, and Sir Edgar, too. That both would fight tooth and nail to keep their visit a secret to the world he felt no less assured.
But why had either of them—mother or son—been concealed in the house that night? Could it have been Lady Brenton whose figure had flitted across the lawn before his startled eyes? True, it had worn a gold scarf and, according to her ladyship, at that moment she had not possessed such an article. Still, there was more than one kind of gold scarf in the world, and even Indian ones were quite easily obtainable.
Then why had she been forced to introduce Gunga Dall to Lady Margaret when the child had been in Paris? Was there some power that the Hindoo possessed over the elder woman? All these thoughts raced through his mind—but——