e heard Violet herself reply faintly
from the room:

"I am better, thank you. I was a little frightened, that's all."

"No wonder," said Ralston, and he spoke again to the maid. "Has anything
gone? Has anything been stolen? There was a jewel-case upon the
dressing-table. I saw it."

The maid looked at him curiously, before she answered. "Nothing has
been touched."

Then, with a glance towards the bed, the maid stooped quickly to a trunk
which stood against the wall close by the door and then slipped out of
the room, closing the door behind her. The corridors were now lighted up,
as though it were still evening and the household had not yet gone to
bed. Ralston saw that the maid held a bundle in her hands.

"I do not think," she said in a whisper, "that the thief came to steal
any thing." She laid some emphasis upon the word.

Ralston took the bundle from her hands and stared at it.

"Good God!" he muttered. He was astonished and more than astonished.
There was something of horror in his low exclamation. He looked at the
maid. She was a woman of forty. She had the look of a capable woman. She
was certainly quite self-possessed.

"Does your mistress know of this?" he asked.

The maid shook her head.

"No, sir. I saw it upon the floor before she came to. I hid it between
the trunk and the wall." She spoke with an ear to the door of the room in
which Violet lay, and in a low voice.

"Good!" said Ralston. "You had better tell her nothing of it for the
present. It would only frighten her"; as he ended he heard Violet
Oliver call out:

"Adela! Adela!"

"Mrs. Oliver wants me," said the maid, as she slipped back into
the bedroom.

Ralston walked slowly back down the corridor into the great hall. He was
carrying the bundle in his hands and his face was very grave. He saw Dick
Linforth in the hall, and before he spoke he looked upwards to the
gallery which ran round it. Even when he had assured himself that there
was no one listening, he spoke in a low voice.

"Do you see this, Linforth?"

He held out the bundle. There was a thick cloth, a sort of pad of cotton,
and some thin strong cords.

"These were found in Mrs. Oliver's room."

He laid the things upon the table and Linforth turned them over, startled
as Ralston had been.

"I don't understand," he said.

"They were left behind," said Ralston.

"By the thief?"

"If he was a thief"; and again Linforth said:

"I don't understand."

But there was