The Markenmore Mystery. J. S. Fletcher

went away upstairs. At the door of her father’s room she met Harry. Sir Anthony, he said, had fallen on a light sleep; the nurse was with him, and there was nothing they could do. They turned off to their own rooms.

      “Who came to the front door?” whispered Harry as they went along the corridor.

      “Mrs. Tretheroe,” answered Valencia.

      “Mrs. Tretheroe! At this time? What did she want?”

      “Guy!”

      “Guy? Who told her he was here?”

      “Her coachman had seen him coming here.”

      “Well?” asked Harry, after a pause. “What then?”

      “I told her he’d gone. She went, then. Went in a hurry, too. Harry!”

      “What?”

      “It strikes me there’s something going on underneath these sudden reappearances. I don’t know what—but something. Mrs. Tretheroe was just mad to see Guy! And—I don’t trust her. She’s—oh, I don’t know what she is! Never mind—let’s go to bed.”

      Valencia went to bed, but it was a long time before she slept, and when at last she did sleep, her slumbers were light and troubled. She woke suddenly in the end—the grey dawn was breaking, and through her open windows she heard the hooting of owls—ominous and fearsome sound—in the woods beyond the park. Something impelled her to rise, throw up her blinds, and look out of the window. Her room faced the east; far away across the park and the low range of hills beyond the fringe of old woodland that enclosed it, a broad belt of red was slowly widening. And already thrush and blackbird were piping in the coverts, and a lark was rising from the home meadow.