"It is all very extraordinary." Colonel Hemyock's thin voice sounded through the room, but his family heeded it not. Their minds were busy with the enigma of the position which was too complicated, not to say suspicious, to be comprehended at once. Only one thing in all the business seemed safe, and their minds jumped together to it. They recoiled, as by a single impulse, from the unattractive personality of Lord Quorn, from the doubtful individualities of Gage and Peckover, and their eyes by common consent sought the spot where their sheet-anchor had lately rested.
"Sharnbrook!"
"Where is he?"
They ran a dead heat to the door, charged through it, and so out into the garden. But John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook's start served him well, and he was at that moment sprinting homewards down the drive with a canny smile on his simple face.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE MASTER SPIRIT
Liverpool Post says:—"The study of the prostrate man giving the best of his brains to the assistance of Herriard is beyond all praise. It is one more variant of the 'double' theory, but it is one of the best achievements of its kind."