Ten minutes after her departure Colonel Brand came out of the library, with his slouching dog at his heels, and called the housekeeper.
"Here's a note to Dr. Gay, informing him of Miss Walsingham's state. Can you send a messenger with it to the village immediately?"
Chetwode turned livid and then gray; held out her hand for the note and drew it back again.
The colonel's eyes scintillated in a way that made her blood run cold, and his boding smile was a failure as far as reassuring her went.
"What's the matter, woman? Have you the presumption to refuse to send a messenger at my request?"
"I couldn't help it," stammered the old woman, bursting into sobs; "she wouldn't hear to one word, and she—she's off to Regis."
"Who? Miss Walsingham? Have you let her leave the castle after all?"
"Lor', master, she was set to go. I thought it wouldn't make much difference whether she was took from Dr. Gay's to the mad-house or from here."
"You are right," muttered the colonel, grimly. "It makes no difference."
He tore his note in two, pushed the housekeeper rudely out of his way, and strode out to the solitary Waaste.