"Are you aware, Lord Vincent, that my servant Katie has been missing since yesterday afternoon?" "Indeed? Where has the old creature taken herself off to? She has not eloped with one of our canny Scots, has she?" inquired the viscount, coolly lighting another cigar and puffing away at it. "Such jesting, my lord, is cruelly out of place! It has not been many days since a very horrid murder was committed on these premises. The murderer has eluded detection. And apparently such impunity has emboldened assassins. I have too much cause to fear that my poor old servant has shared Ailsie Dunbar's fate!" Before Claudia had finished her sentence Lord Vincent had dropped his cigar and was gazing at her in ill-concealed terror. "What cause have you for such absurd fears? Pray do you take the castle of my ancestors to be the lair of banditti?" he asked in a tone of assumed effrontery, but of real cowardice. "For something very like that indeed, my lord!" answered Claudia, with a terrible smile. "I ask you what cause have you for entertaining these preposterous suspicions?" "First of all, the assassination of Ailsie Dunbar and the successful concealment of her murderer. Secondly, the mysterious disappearance of my servant Katie, just at a time when it was desirable to some parties to get her out of the way," said Claudia emphatically, and fixing her eyes firmly on the face of the viscount, that visibly paled before her gaze. "What--what do you mean by that?" "My lord, I will tell you. Yesterday afternoon, as I was descending to dinner, old Katie met me on the stairs and with a frightened face told me that she had made an important discovery that she wished to communicate to me. I directed her to go to my dressing room and wait there until my return from dinner, when I fully intended to hasten at once to her side and hear what she had to say--" "Some 'mare's nest' of a new rumor concerning the murderer of Ailsie Dunbar, I suppose," said the viscount, with a feeble attempt to sneer. "No, my lord, I rather think it was something concerning my own safety. But I never knew; for you may recollect that on last evening your lordship detained me in conversation some time after dinner. When I went to my dressing room Katie was not there. I thought she had grown sleepy and had gone to bed, and so I felt no anxiety on that score. But this morning, my lord, she is missing. She is nowhere to be found." "Oh, I dare say she has gone visiting some of the country people with whom she has picked acquaintance. She will turn up all right by and by." "I fear not, my lord." "Why do you 'fear not'?" "Because there are other very suspicious circumstances connected with the disappearance of Katie, that since her evanishment have recurred to my memory, or been brought to knowledge." "Pray, may one ask without indiscretion, what these suspicious circumstances are?"