"Oh Madeline, Madeline, could I but bring back the hour I met you here, when, soft and low, with many a blush, you told me that you loved me! If I could but wake up and find the time between then and now nothing more than a hideous nightmare fancy of my own! In vain! It is no wild imagining of a disordered brain, but a baleful reality, with far reaching consequences which no human eye can foresee. But here comes Rodd, red faced and out of breath. What a pity it is--and how futile--to take things so seriously as he does."
"It _was_ Dixon, as I thought," exclaimed the other as he came up. "Much has happened since I left the Towers. It has been discovered that Mrs. Drelincourt's jewel case has been rifled, and, by Mr. Ormsby's orders, Gumley has been arrested on suspicion of being both the thief and--and----"
"The murderer. Why fight shy of the word, my dear Rodd? 'Tis always best to call things by their right names. But who is this Gumley that you speak of?"
"An ill conditioned, saucy sort of fellow who was taken on about a fortnight ago to help in the gardens. He and Mrs. Drelincourt had some words the other day, when she lashed him across the face with her riding whip."
"Just the sort of thing Kate would do. But this rifling of the jewel case--and last night, too! The coincidence, if one may call it such, is somewhat remarkable."
"Had we not better get back to the Towers with as little delay as possible?"
"Under the circumstances, it may perhaps be as well to do so. And so this fellow--this Gumley--has been arrested by James Ormsby's orders! I have always regarded Ormsby as a meddlesome fool; now I'm sure he's one."
"We have yet to learn under what circumstances the arrest was effected."
"True for you, my youthful Solomon. Well, let us be gone. But the coincidence, Rodd, the coincidence--the strangeness of the two things happening together!"
Roden Marsh did not reply, but led the way out of the glade. Drelincourt, who was following him, on reaching the edge of it, turned, and lifting his hat, said softly: "Adieu, Madeline!"
CHAPTER III. SIR JOHN CONDUCTS THE INQUIRY.
The middle of the library at the Towers was occupied by a large oblong oaken table, with a number of leather seated chairs ranged around it. At the upper end of this sat Sir John Musgrave, who had lately bought the mansion and estate of Grovelands, and was as yet a comparative stranger in the neighborhood. Mr. Ormsby, brother-in-law to Mr. Drelincourt, took the chair on the right of the baronet.