Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/106

94 I longed for the coming of the dawn when the Rannoch keepers would most certainly discover her. Then at least I should know the truth, for I might go and see the body out of curiosity without arousing any suspicion.

I tried to play my usual game of billiards with my uncle, but my hand was so unsteady that the old gentleman began to chaff me.

"It's the gun, I suppose," I remarked. "I've been carrying it all day and am tired out. I walked all the way home from Crossburn."

"The Carmichaels are very thick with the Leithcourts, I hear," my uncle remarked. "Strange they didn't ask Leithcourt to their shoot."

"They did, but he'd got another engagement — over at Kenmure Castle, I think."

I retired to my room that night full of fevered apprehension. Had I acted rightly in not returning to that lonely spot on the brow of the hill? Had I done as a man should do in keeping the tragic secret to myself?

I opened my window and gazed away across the dark Nithsdale, where, in the distant gloom, the black line of wood loomed up against the stormy sky. The stars were no longer shining and the rain clouds had gathered. I stood with my face turned to the dark indistinct spot that held the secret, lost in wonderment.

At last I closed the window and turned in, but no sleep came to my eyes, so full was my mind of the startling events of those past few months and of that gruesome discovery I had made.