ice whispered close by.

"I am, Williams," David replied; "I have been waiting for some time."

Williams chuckled, making no kind of apology for his want of punctuality.

"I've been looking after our man, sir," he said. "That Dutch chap what
Miss Enid said you'd come for. And I saw all that business in the
shrubbery just now. My! if I didn't feel good when you laid out Henson on
the grass. The sound of that smack was as good as ten years' wages for
me. And he's gone off to his room with a basin of vinegar and a ream of
brown paper. Why didn't you break his neck?"

David suggested that the law took a prejudiced view of that kind of
thing, and that it would be a pity to hang anyone for such a creature as
Reginald Henson.

"Our man is all right?" he asked.

"As a trivet," said Williams. "Sleeping like a baby; he is in my own
bed over the stable. I'll show you into the harness-room, where Miss
Enid's waiting for you, sir, and then I'll go and see as Henson don't
come prowling about. Not as he's likely to, considering the clump on
the side of the head you gave him. I take it kind of Providence to let
me see that!"

Williams hobbled away, chuckling to himself and followed by David. There
was a feeble oil-lamp in the harness-room. Enid was waiting there
anxiously.

"So you have put Henson out of the way for a time," she said. "He passed
me just now using awful language, and wondering how it had all come
about. Wasn't it a strange thing that Van Sneck should come here?"

"Not very," David said. "He is evidently looking for his master,
Reginald Henson. I have not the slightest doubt that he has been here
many times before. Williams says he is asleep. Pity to wake him just
yet, don't you think?"

"Perhaps it is. But I am horribly afraid of our dear friend Reginald, all
the same."

"Our dear Reginald will not trouble us just yet. He came down as far as
London with Bell. Of course he had heard the news of Van Sneck's flight.
Was he disturbed?"

"I have never seen him in such a passion before, Mr. Steel. And not only
was he in a passion, but he was horribly afraid about something. And he
has made a discovery."

"He hasn't found out that your sister--"

"Is at Littimer Castle? That is really the most consoling part of the
business. He has been at Littimer for a day or two, and he has not the
remotest idea that Christabel Lee is our Chris."

"A feather in your sister's cap. She has quite captivated Littimer,
Bell s