“She is not in the garden,” said Wilkins, with a solemn enjoyment of the other’s disappointment. Arthur Arden was not liked by the servants; and Wilkins lingered over every word by way of tantalising him more. “Miss Arden has gone out, sir, for the day. For the day--them were her very words. ‘Wilkins,’ she says, ‘if any one calls, I have gone out for the day.’ Nothing, sir, could be more exact than Miss Arden was.” Arthur was so completely taken aback that he stood aghast for a moment gazing at the man who confronted him with the ghost of a smile on his face, blocking up the door. Wilkins stood like one who felt his own supremacy, in an easy attitude upon the threshold, forbidding all comers as effectually as if he had been a squadron of cavalry. “Them were the very words,” he said, rubbing his hands; and Arthur stood below, expelled as it were from Paradise. The catastrophe was so sudden and so unlooked for that he did not in the least know how to meet it. He could not even for the moment hide his own discomfiture and dismay. “I suppose Miss Arden intends me to go on with my work and await her coming,” he said at length. “I am very sorry to miss her, but I suppose that is what I must do.” “She didn’t say nothing about it, sir,” said Wilkins; “and what is more, she’s been and locked the library door.” Then Arthur perceived that things were really going against him. He would not betray himself to the servant’s all-penetrating eyes. “Ah, I suppose something must have happened,” he said, with as light a tone as he could summon up. “Tell Miss Arden I was very sorry to find her gone. I suppose she has changed her mind about the papers. Tell her if she wishes me to go on with them that she must send me word to the Red House. I shall be there for some days longer. I shall pay my respects to her whether I hear from her or not before I leave; but if I am to do any more work ask her to let me know.”