Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the theory of an accident unlikely is that telephone message. You see, he telephoned quite late on Thursday saying that he would stay in town over the night. But he didn't send a similar message to the Bank, as any one knowing Godfrey would certainly have expected him to do, and he didn't let them know at the Hungerford Hotel that he would be away for the night. It's all rather mysterious." "Yes, it is," said Katty. "I wonder--" Laura grew a little pink--"I wonder," she said again, "if you know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would rather like to know that." And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't know what business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away for quite a long time--I only came back on Thursday afternoon." "Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been away nearly a fortnight, haven't you?" "Yes. First I went right down to the south, and then up to Yorkshire." Somehow she felt impelled to say this. But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at any time, least of all just now. "Well, I thought I'd come and just ask you on the chance," she said. She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood together not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom. Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an extraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad." "He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly. Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was never anything to see in Laura's face. "Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The Chase. Hadn't I better say you're here?" And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open the window. "Mr. Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice. The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stopped rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang the door-bell. "Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am." "I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out into the garden with Alice." She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at her, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was. "Will you go through the house into the garden? Alice is there. We'll be down soon." Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, her skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she said hesitatingly. And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course by this time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very early morning train. He often took it last summer." "Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the dark to take it." "I don't think Godfrey would mind that."