“You’ll stay and have dinner, won’t you?” urged his hostess.
Benton hesitated.
“If I do Louise may return, and just now I don’t want to meet her. It is better not.”
“But she won’t be back till the last train to Guildford. Mead is meeting her. Yes—stay.”
“I must get a car to take me back to town. I have to go to Glasgow by the early train in the morning.”
“Well, we’re order one from one of the garages in Guildford. You really must stay, Charles. There’s lots we have to talk over—a lot of things that are of vital consequence to us both.”
At that moment there came a rap at the door and the young manservant entered, saying:
“You’re wanted on the telephone, ma’am.”
Mrs. Bond rose from the settee and went to the telephone in the library, where she heard the voice of a female telephone operator.
“Is that Shapley Manor?” she asked. “I have a telegram for Mrs. Bond. Handed in at Nice at two twenty-five, received here at four twenty-eight. ‘To Bond, Shapley Manor, near Guildford. Yvonne shot by some unknown person while with Hugh. In grave danger.—S.’ That is the message. Have you got it please?”