She made me get dressed all in a hurry, and then we swallowed some breakfast hastily whilst a fly was being got for us. I had, perforce, to satisfy my curiosity from my own inner consciousness. Lady Molly was too absorbed to take any notice of me. Evidently the chief knew what she had done and approved of it: the telegram from Meisures pointed to that. My lady had suddenly become a personality. Dressed very quietly, and in a smart close-fitting hat, she looked years older than her age, owing also to the seriousness of her mien. The fly took us to Ninescore fairly quickly. At the little police-station we found Meisures awaiting us. He had Elliott and Pegram from the Yard with him. They had obviously got their orders, for all three of them were mighty deferential. “The woman is Mary Nicholls, right enough,” said Meisures, as Lady Molly brushed quickly past him, “the woman who was supposed to have been murdered. It’s that silly bogus paragraph about the infant brought her out of her hiding-place. I wonder how it got in,” he added blandly; “the child is well enough.” “I wonder,” said Lady Molly, whilst a smile--the first I had seen that morning--lit up her pretty face. “I suppose the other sister will turn up too, presently,” rejoined Elliott. “Pretty lot of trouble we shall have now. If Mary Nicholls is alive and kickin’, who was murdered at Ash Court, say I?” “I wonder,” said Lady Molly, with the same charming smile. Then she went in to see Mary Nicholls. The Reverend Octavius Ludlow was sitting beside the girl, who seemed in great distress, for she was crying bitterly. Lady Molly asked Elliott and the others to remain in the passage whilst she herself went into the room, I following behind her. When the door was shut, she went up to Mary Nicholls, and assuming a hard and severe manner, she said: “Well, you have at last made up your mind, have you, Nicholls? I suppose you know that we have applied for a warrant for your arrest?” The woman gave a shriek which unmistakably was one of fear. “My arrest?” she gasped. “What for?” “The murder of your sister Susan.” “’Twasn’t me!” she said quickly. “Then Susan _is_ dead?” retorted Lady Molly, quietly. Mary saw that she had betrayed herself. She gave Lady Molly a look of agonised horror, then turned as white as a sheet and would have fallen had not the Reverend Octavius Ludlow gently led her to a chair. “It wasn’t me,” she repeated, with a heart-broken sob. “That will be for you to prove,” said Lady Molly dryly. “The child cannot now, of course, remain with Mrs. Williams; she will be removed to the workhouse, and----” “No, that she shan’t be,” said the mother excitedly. “She shan’t be, I tell you. The workhouse, indeed,” she added in a paroxysm of hysterical tears, “and her father a lord!” [IMAGE: images/img024.jpg CAPTION: “The woman gave a shriek which unmistakably was one of fear”]