The ready lie rose to my lips. It is very well for moralists to tell us we should always speak the truth. There are occasions when an aptitude for wandering into paths of falsehood may prove extremely useful. It did so now.
“No,” I answered, “I’m not. I am on my way to my little place about twenty miles from here—it is let now, but I think of returning to live there—and it occurred to me to look in at Houghton again. I saw it mentioned, in some paper the other day, that the Thorolds are returning.”
“Yes, that is so,” Whichelo answered. “Sir Charles has instructed me to see to everything, and make all arrangements. I have only to-day heard that he is very ill at the hospital. Have you seen him?”
I told him the latest bulletin. Then I asked him if he had any idea of Lady Thorold’s whereabouts.
“All I know,” he answered, “is that she was abroad when last I heard of her.”
“Abroad? Was that lately?”
“About a week ago. She was then somewhere in the Basses Alpes. Has she not been to see Sir Charles?”
“No. We don’t know where she is.”
“Who do you mean by ‘we’?”
“Vera Thorold and myself.”