He grinned.
"Don't be so cordial! If you'll send me into town I'll be off."
I had just ordered the dog-cart when the butler appeared.
"If you please, sir. Sister Margaret wishes to use our telephone, sir. St. Agatha's is out of order."
I spoke to the Sister as she left the house, half as a matter of courtesy, half to make sure of her. The telephone at St. Agatha's had been out of order for several days, she said; and I walked with her to St. Agatha's gate, talking of the weather, the garden and the Holbrook ladies, who were, she said, quite well.
Thereafter, when I had despatched Gillespie to the village in the dog-cart, I got into my leggings, reflecting upon the odd circumstance that Helen Holbrook had been able to speak to me over the telephone a few minutes before, using an instrument that had, by Sister Margaret's testimony, been out of commission for several days. The girl had undoubtedly slipped away from St. Agatha's and spoken to me from some other house in the neighborhood; but this was a matter of little importance, now that I had undertaken her commission.
The chapel clock chimed nine as I gained the road, and I walked my horse to scan St. Agatha's windows through vistas that offered across the foliage. And there, by the open window of her aunt's sitting-room, I saw Helen Holbrook reading. A table-lamp at her side illumined her slightly bent head; and, as though aroused by my horse's quick step in the road, she rose and stood framed against the light, with the soft window draperies fluttering about her.
I spoke to my horse and galloped toward Red Gate.