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128 that he was on his way to another meeting with the Lady Loudwater, and that it was the duty of a faithful retainer to make sure about it, with a view to informing his master should his surmise prove correct, he followed him.

The Colonel went straight through the wood into the Castle garden, walked round the Castle, keeping in its shadow as he went, till he stood under the window of Lady Loudwater's suite of rooms.

There he appeared to suffer a check. There was a light in the room on the ground floor under her boudoir. The Colonel had waited quite a while; then he had walked round the Castle and into it by the library window.

William, greatly surprised by the Colonel's audacity, had taken up his position in a clump of tall rhododendrons, opposite the library window, from which he could keep watch on it.

"What time would this be?" said Mr. Flexen.

"It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes past ten, sir," said William Roper.

"And what happened then?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Nothing 'appened for a good ten minutes. Then James Hutchings, the butler, come across the gardens from the south gate, as if 'e'd come from the village, and 'e went in through the libery winder—the same winder."

Mr. Flexen had thought it not unlikely that