only too well.

The bed was large, and some one else had evidently slept there besides
herself, for the sheet and pillow were rumpled and there was a
half-burnt candle and a man's watch-chain on the small table beside it.
Wherever she was then, Ian was there too, so that she was at a loss to
understand her own sinister foreboding.

She pulled at the bell-rope twice.

There were only three servants in the house; a housekeeper and two
maids, who all dated from the days of Mrs. Maria Idle, ex-mistress of
the late Lord Ipswich, dead herself now some six months. The housekeeper
was asleep, the maids out of hearing. She opened the door and found a
bathroom opposite her bedroom. It had a window which showed her a strip
of lawn with flower-beds upon it, beyond that shrubberies and tall trees
which shut out any farther view. A hoarse cuckoo was crying in the
distance, and from the greenery came a twittering of birds and sometimes
a few liquid pipings; but there was no sound of human life. The place
seemed as empty as an enchanted palace in a fairy story.

Milly's toilet never took her very long. She put on a fresh, simple
cotton dress, which seemed to have been worn the day before, and was
just hesitating as to whether she should go down or wait for Ian to
come, when Clarkson, the housekeeper, knocked at her door.

"I thought if you was awake, madam, you might like a bit of lunch," she
said.

Milly refused, for this horrible feeling of depression and anxiety made
her insensible to hunger. She looked at the housekeeper with a certain
surprise, for Clarkson was as decorated and as much the worse for wear
as the furniture of the bedroom. She was a large, fat woman, laced into
a brown cashmere dress, with a cameo brooch on her ample bosom; her hair
was unnaturally black, curled and dressed high on the top of her head,
she had big gold earrings, and a wealth of powder on her large, red
face.

"Can you tell me where I am likely to find Mr. Stewart?" asked Milly,
politely.

The woman stared, and when she answered there was more than a shade of
insolence in her coarse voice and smile.

"I'm sure I can't tell, madam. Mr. Stewart's not our gentleman here."

Milly, understanding the reply as little as the housekeeper had
understood the question, yet felt that some impertinence was intended
and turned away.

There was nothing for it but to explore on her own account. A staircase
of the dull Victorian kind led down to a dark, c