he open doorway. He would have
given a thousand pounds to be in morning attire, but no
constraint was perceptible in the big, careless, impassive figure
framed against the sunlit yard.

"Are you Mrs. Clowes's maid?" he singled out a tall, rather
stiff, quiet-looking girl in the plain black dress of her
calling. "Is your name Catherine? I want to speak to you."

She stood up--they were all standing by now except Gordon--but
she looked at him very oddly, as if she were half frightened and
half inclined to be familiar. "I suppose you can tell me where
my lady is, sir?"

"She is waiting for you," said Lawrence. "I say that I want to
speak to you by yourself. Come in here, please." Catherine
continued to look as if she felt inclined to flounce and toss her
head, but under his cold and steady eyes she thought better of it
and followed him into the pantry. Lawrence shut the door.

"I'd have gone to my lady, sir, if I'd known where she was."

"You're going to her now," said Lawrence. "I want you, please,
to run up to her room and fetch some clothes, the sort of clothes
she would wear to go out walking: you understand what I mean? A
jacket and dress and hat, walking boots, a veil--" Catherine
intimated that she did understand: much better than any
gentleman, her smile implied.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "what you would like is for me to pack
a small box for her, sir? My lady will want a lot of things that
gentlemen don't think of: underskirts and--"

"Good God, what do I care?" said Lawrence impatiently. "No,
nothing of that sort: take just what she wants to change out of
evening dress into morning dress. It'll be only for a few hours.
Go and get them, and be as quick and quiet as you can. Say
nothing to Major Clowes." He laid his hand on her shoulder.
"Are you a decent girl, I wonder?"

She drew up and for the first time looked him straight in the
eyes. "If you mean, sir, that you're going to take my poor lady
away, why, I think it's high time too. I was always brought up
respectable, but when it comes to a gentleman calling his own
married wife such names, why, it's time some one did interfere.
I heard him with my own ears call her a--"

"That'll do," said Lawrence.

"And struck her, that he did, which you ought to know," Catherine
persisted eagerly: "put his arm out through the door and gave her
a great blow! and it's not the first time neither. Many's the
night when I've undressed my lady but perhap