to her
room and closed the door behind her.

He went on up to his attic with the feeling that she could have answered
if she had wished to, and lay down in a troubled and dispirited mood.

For he was sure now that Ella mistrusted him and would give him
no assistance, and that weighed upon him greatly, as did also his
conviction that what it behoved him above all else to know--the identity
of the man who, in this affair, stood behind Deede Dawson and made use
of his fierce and fatal energies--he had had it in his power to discover
and had failed to make use of the opportunity.

"I would rather know that," he said to himself, "than save a dozen
Clives ten times over." Though again it occurred to him that on this
point Clive might hold another opinion. "If he hadn't made such a
blundering row I might have got to know who Deede Dawson's visitor was.
I must try to get a word with Clive tomorrow by hook or crook, though I
daresay Deede Dawson will be very much on the lookout."

However, next morning Deede Dawson not only made no reference to the
events of the night, but had out the car and went off immediately after
breakfast without saying when he would be back.

As soon after his departure as possible, Dunn also set out and took
his way through the woods towards Ramsdon Place on the look-out for an
opportunity to speak to Clive unobserved.

He thought it most likely that Clive would be drawn towards the vicinity
of Bittermeads by the double fascination of curiosity and fear, and he
supposed that if he waited and watched in the woods he would be sure
presently to see him.

But though he remained for long hidden at a spot whence he could command
the road to Bittermeads from Ramsdon Place, he saw nothing at all of
Clive, and the sunny lazy morning was well advanced when he was startled
by the sound of a gun shot some distance away.

"A keeper shooting rabbits, I suppose," he thought, looking round just
in time to see Ella running through the wood from the direction whence
the sound of the shot had seemed to come, and then vanish again with a
quick look behind her into the heart of a close-growing spinney.

CHAPTER XVI. IN THE WOOD

There had been an air of haste, almost of furtiveness, about this swift
appearance and more swift vanishing of Ella, that made Dunn ask himself
uneasily what errand she could have been on.

He hesitated for a moment, half expecting to see her return again,
or that there would be s