Two minutes later a man came brushing roughly through the underwood. At the edge of the glade he paused for a moment, while he took off his hat and mopped his brow.
Drelincourt stood motionless, his eyes turned upon him. Under his breath he said: "He has the look of one charged with a message of doom."
The newcomer, Roden Marsh by name, was Felix Drelincourt's foster brother. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a pronounced stoop of the shoulders which detracted considerably from his height. He had a long, thin face, a high ridged, prominent nose, thoughtful, deep set eyes, and a profusion of straw colored hair parted down the middle.
His clothes, generally more or less worn and threadbare--not from necessity, but because he was both indifferent to appearances and parsimoniously inclined--hung loosely on his lean and bony frame. By strangers he was often taken for the village schoolmaster.
As he advanced into the glade, any one familiar with his customary phlegmatic and unemotional manner would have seen at once that he was the bearer of no ordinary tidings.
"Thank Heaven I have found you!" were his first words, and there could be no doubt of the sincerity with which they were spoken.
"It is a small mercy to be thankful for," replied the other, with the ghost of a smile.
"A terrible discovery has been made at the Towers."
"Those are strong words, my dear Rodd, but they fail to convey any definite idea to my mind. They may mean much or they may mean very little."
"Mrs. Drelincourt has been murdered in her sleep."