is Thomas now?" he asked, in a low voice.

"He's in North India somewhere, Sir Edmund, but that is his poor
mother's trouble; we've not had a line from him these three months."

"Oh, I'll find him for you," said Edmund, and he was just going to ask
what regiment Thomas was in when they were disturbed by the appearance
of Billy emerging from the hunters' stable, and Edmund Grosse felt an
unwarrantable contempt for a young man who dawdles away half the morning
in the stable.

"Should I find you at six o'clock this evening?" he asked, in a low
voice, of the stud-groom; and having been satisfied on that point, he
strolled off and left Billy to talk of the horses.

Edmund Grosse felt for the moment as if the missing will were in his
grasp, and he was quite sure now that he had never doubted its
existence. What he had just heard was the very first thing approaching
to evidence in favour of his own theory, which he had hitherto built up
entirely on guess-work. Of course, the paper might have been some
ordinary deed, some bit of business the General had forgotten to
transact before starting. But, if so, he felt sure that it must have
been business unknown to the brothers Murray, as they had discussed with
Grosse every detail of Sir Edmund's affairs. One thing was certain: it
would be quite as difficult after this to drive out of Edmund Grosse's
head the belief that this paper was a will as it would be to drive it
out of the head of Mrs. Akers.

Edmund was in excellent spirits at luncheon. In the afternoon he drove
with Lady Groombridge and Rose and Molly to see a famous garden some
eight miles off, the owners of which were away in the South. The
original house to which the gardens belonged had been replaced by a
modern one in Italian style at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
It was not interesting, and Lady Groombridge gave a sniff of contempt as
she turned her back on it and her attention, and that of her friends, to
the far more striking green walls beyond the wide terraced walk on the
south side of the building.

In the midst of ordinary English country scenery, these gardens had been
set by a great Frenchman who had caught the strange secret of the
romance of utterly formal hedges. He could make of them a fitting
framework for the glories of a court, or for sylvan life in Merrie
England. There were miles of hedges; not yew, hornbeam had been chosen
for this green, tranquil country. At one spot many avenues of