So he yawned wearily, rose, stretched himself, and then, pacing the room twice, at last turned up the lamp and placed it upon the small writing-table at the foot of the bed. Afterwards he took from his suit-case a quire of ruled foolscap paper and a fountain pen, and, seating himself, sat for some time with his head in his hands deep in thought. Suddenly the clock in the big hall below chimed two upon its peal of silvery bells. This aroused him, and, taking up his pen, he began to write.
Ever and anon as he wrote he sat back and reflected.
Hour after hour he sat there, bent to the table, his pen rapidly travelling over the paper. He wrote down many figures and was making calculations.
At half-past four he put down his pen. The sum was not complete, but it was one which he knew would end his career and bring him into the dock of a criminal court, and Weirmarsh and others would stand beside him.
All this he had done in entire ignorance of one startling fact—namely, that outside his window for the past hour a dark figure had been standing in an insecure position upon the lead guttering of the wing of the château which ran out at right angles, leaning forward and peering in between the blind and the window-frame, watching with interest all that had been in progress.
CHAPTER XI
CONCERNS THE PAST
One evening, a few days after Sir Hugh had paid another visit to Haudiomont, he was smoking with Paul prior to retiring to bed when the conversation drifted upon money matters—some investment he had made in England in his wife's name.