`Not find her there!'

`No. She left the house yesterday morning with Fosco and his wife.'

Lady Glyde was not strong enough to bear the surprise of this extraordinary statement. She turned fearfully pale, and leaned back against the wall, looking at her husband in dead silence.

I was so astonished myself that I hardly knew what to say. I asked Sir Percival if he really meant that Miss Halcombe had left Blackwater Park.

`I certainly mean it,' he answered.

`In her state, Sir Percival! Without mentioning her intentions to Lady Glyde!'

Before he could reply her ladyship recovered herself a little and spoke.

`Impossible!' she cried out in a loud, frightened manner, taking a step or two forward from the wall. `Where was the doctor? where was Mr Dawson when Marian went away?'

`Mr Dawson wasn't wanted, and wasn't here,' said Sir Percival. `He left of his own accord, which is enough of itself to show that she was strong enough to travel. How you stare! If you don't believe she has gone, look for yourself. Open her room door, and all the other room doors if you like.'

She took him at his word, and I followed her. There was no one in Miss Halcombe's room but Margaret Porcher, who was busy setting it to rights. There was no one in the spare rooms or the dressing-rooms when we looked into them afterwards. Sir Percival still waited for us in the passage. As we were leaving the last room that we had examined Lady Glyde whispered, `Don't go, Mrs Michelson! don't leave me, for God's sake!' Before I could say anything in return she was out again in the passage, speaking to her husband.

`What does it mean, Sir Percival? I insist -- I beg and pray you will tell me what it means.'

`It means,' he answered, `that Miss Halcombe was strong enough yesterday morning to sit up and be dressed, and that she insisted on taking advantage of Fosco's going to London to go there too.'

`To London!'

`Yes -- on her way to Limmeridge.'

Lady Glyde turned and appealed to me.

`You saw Miss Halcombe last,' she said. `Tell me plainly, Mrs Michelson, did you think she looked fit to travel?'

`Not in my opinion, your ladyship.'

Sir Percival, on his side, instantly turned and appealed to me also.

`Before you went away,' he said, `did you, or did you not, tell the nurse that Miss Halcombe looked much stronger and better?'

`I certainly made the remark, Sir Percival.'

He addressed her ladyship again the moment I offered that reply.

`Set one of Mrs Michelson's opinions fairly against the other,' he said, `and try to be reasonable about a perfectly plain matter. If she had not been well enough to be moved do you think we should any of