"Have you not brought her back with you?" she asked, and looked surprisedly past him at Lord Ingoldsby.
"Where is she?" Carthew asked, in sudden alarm. "I haven't seen her."
"She went along to the gun-room a little ago—a note came to say she was wanted there. And—I supposed it would be from you."
"I'll find her there, then," declared Carthew, and turned and retraced his steps very hurriedly. An instant dread of some unforeseen mischance among his over-rapid plans for her welfare had filled his mind; and his face grew dark as he hobbled back along that endless corridor and across the deserted main hall again, with Lord Ingoldsby at his elbow.
Of the sleepy servants they passed by the way he asked no questions, for only the butler and his immediate underlings knew anything as yet of what had happened. It had been Carthew's own idea to prevent any garbled report being spread about till he should have devised some means to save Sallie from pain and scandal.
He found the gun-room empty, and stared about it in dire distress. Then he sniffed the air, frowning. And then he noticed a half-smoked cigarette smouldering in the fireplace. He picked it up hastily and saw Jasper Slyne's monogram upon it.
"Must have been a long time burning," he thought, and a concrete suspicion flashed through his mind. But that seemed so far-fetched at first that he shook his head impatiently over it.
"They could scarcely escape from the North Keep," said he to himself. "But—I may as well make sure that everything's safe here while I'm about it," he muttered, and limped across to the panel that covered the passage to the water-gate.
It was unlocked.
He pulled it open and looked down into the darkness, listening intently. Then he swung round and, snatching up the lighted lamp on the table beside the fire, made off down the steps, leaving Lord Ingoldsby in the dark.