"What is it? Open! Open!" and then in the garden the report of a rifle rang loud.

She turned up the lights, flung a dressing-gown about her shoulders and opened the door. Ralston was in the pa.s.sage, behind him she saw lights strangely wavering and other faces. These too wavered strangely. From very far away, she heard Ralston's voice once more.

"What is it? What is it?"

And then she fell forward against him and sank in a swoon upon the floor.

Ralston lifted her on to her bed and summoned her maid. He went out of the house and made inquiries of the guard. The sentry's story was explicit and not to be shaken by any cross-examination. He had patrolled that side of the house in which Mrs. Oliver's room lay, all night. He had seen nothing. At one o'clock in the morning the moon sank and the night became very dark. It was about three when a few minutes after pa.s.sing beneath the verandah, and just as he had turned the corner of the house, he heard a shrill scream from Mrs. Oliver's room. He ran back at once, and as he ran he heard a second scream. He saw no one, but he heard a rustling and cracking in the bushes as though a fugitive plunged through.

He fired in the direction of the noise and then ran with all speed to the spot. He found no one, but the bushes were broken.

Ralston went back into the house and knocked at Mrs. Oliver's door. The maid opened it.

"How is Mrs. Oliver?" he asked, and he heard Violet herself reply faintly from the room:

"I am better, thank you. I was a little frightened, that's all."

"No wonder," said Ralston, and he spoke again to the maid. "Has anything gone? Has anything been stolen? There was a jewel-case upon the dressing-table. I saw it."

The maid looked at him curiously, before she answered. "Nothing has been touched."

Then, with a glance towards the bed, the maid stooped quickly to a trunk which stood against the wall close by the door and then slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. The corridors were now lighted up, as though it were still evening and the household had not yet gone to bed. Ralston saw that the maid held a bundle in her hands.

"I do not think," she said in a whisper, "that the thief came to steal any thing." She laid some emphasis upon the word.

Ralston took the bundle from her hands and stared at it.

"Good G.o.d!" he muttered. He was astonished and more than astonished.

There was something of horror in his low exclamation. He looked at the maid. She was a woman of forty. She had the look of a capable woman. She was certainly quite self-possessed.

"Does your mistress know of this?" he asked.

The maid shook her head.

"No, sir. I saw it upon the floor before she came to. I hid it between the trunk and the wall." She spoke with an ear to the door of the room in which Violet lay, and in a low voice.

"Good!" said Ralston. "You had better tell her nothing of it for the present. It would only frighten her"; as he ended he heard Violet Oliver call out:

"Adela! Adela!"

"Mrs. Oliver wants me," said the maid, as she slipped back into the bedroom.

Ralston walked slowly back down the corridor into the great hall. He was carrying the bundle in his hands and his face was very grave. He saw d.i.c.k Linforth in the hall, and before he spoke he looked upwards to the gallery which ran round it. Even when he had a.s.sured himself that there was no one listening, he spoke in a low voice.

"Do you see this, Linforth?"

He held out the bundle. There was a thick cloth, a sort of pad of cotton, and some thin strong cords.

"These were found in Mrs. Oliver's room."

He laid the things upon the table and Linforth turned them over, startled as Ralston had been.

"I don't understand," he said.

"They were left behind," said Ralston.

"By the thief?"

"If he was a thief"; and again Linforth said:

"I don't understand."

But there was now more of anger, more of horror in his voice, than surprise; and as he spoke he took up the pad of cotton wool.

"You do understand," said Ralston, quietly.

Linforth's fingers worked. That pad of cotton seemed to him more sinister than even the cords.

"For her!" he cried, in a quiet but dangerous voice. "For Violet," and at that moment neither noticed his utterance of her Christian name. "Let me only find the man who entered her room."

Ralston looked steadily at Linforth.

"Have you any suspicion as to who the man is?" he asked.

There was a momentary silence in that quiet hall. Both men stood looking at each other.

"It can't be," said Linforth, at length. But he spoke rather to himself than to Ralston. "It can't be."

Ralston did not press the question.

"It's the insolence of the attempt which angers me," he said. "We must wait until Mrs. Oliver can tell us what happened, what she saw.

Meanwhile, she knows nothing of those things. There is no need that she should know."

He left Linforth standing in the hall and went up the stairs. When he reached the gallery, he leaned over quietly and looked down.

Linforth was still standing by the table, fingering the cotton-pad.

Ralston heard him say again in a voice which was doubtful now rather than incredulous:

"It can't be he! He would not dare!"

But no name was uttered.

CHAPTER XXIX

MRS. OLIVER RIDES THROUGH PESHAWUR