r" in
Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at
all, at about eleven o'clock.

At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the
familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour's walking
would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a
restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before
she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still
there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the
night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in
Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk
and would ring when she returned.

Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her
home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The
silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the
feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to
the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and
shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She
experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which
lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more
adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the
drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to
facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be
rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from
noticing the fact.

All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt
indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the
moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity--one might almost say
anarchy--had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She
marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely
abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping
house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the
drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of
his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to
maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If
there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it
was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out.

She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment,
from the direction of the door