il long past midnight, he sat
engrossed in a scientific volume.

CHAPTER II

THE APARTMENT-HOUSE MYSTERY

1.

"This habit of becoming late for breakfast," Lady Ashleigh remarked, as
she set down the coffee-pot, "is growing upon your father."

Ella glanced up from a pile of correspondence through which she had been
looking a little negligently.

"When he comes," she said, "I shall tell him what Clyde says in his new
play--that unpunctuality for breakfast and overpunctuality for dinner are
two of the signs of advancing age."

"I shouldn't," her mother advised. "He hates anything that sounds like an
epigram, and I noticed that he avoided any allusion to his birthday last
month. Any news, dear?"

"None at all, mother. My correspondence is just the usual sort of
rubbish--invitations and gossip. Such a lot of invitations, by-the-bye."

"At your age," Lady Ashleigh declared, "that is the sort of correspondence
which you should find interesting."

Ella shook her head. She was a very beautiful young woman, but her
expression was a little more serious than her twenty-two years warranted.

"You know I am not like that, mother," she protested. "I have found one
thing in life which interests me more than all this frivolous business of
amusing oneself. I shall never be happy--not really happy--until I have
settled down to study hard. My music is really the only part of life which
absolutely appeals to me."

Lady Ashleigh sighed.

"It seems so unnecessary," she murmured. "Since Esther was married you are
practically an only daughter, you are quite well off, and there are so
many young men who want to marry you."

Ella laughed gaily.

"That sort of thing may come later on, mother," she declared,--"I suppose
I am only human like the rest of us--but to me the greatest thing in the
whole world just now is music, my music. It is a little wonderful, isn't
it, to have a gift, a real gift, and to know it? Oh, why doesn't Delarey
make up his mind and let father know, as he promised!... Here comes daddy,
mum. Bother! He's going to shoot, and I hoped he'd play golf with me."

Lord Ashleigh, who had stepped through some French windows at the farther
end of the terrace, paused for a few minutes to look around him. There was
certainly some excuse for his momentary absorption. The morning, although
it was late September, was perfectly fine and warm. The cattle in the park
which surrounded the house were already gathered u