“I came through your study. I rang the bell at the door, but nobody answered me. And then I tried your French windows and they were open.” “I’m always forgetting to lock them. I’m glad I did. And they will never be locked in the future,” said Dick. “Now, just tell me what happened?” She told her story coherently. Her very association with this man had restored her failing courage. And as she grew calmer, she became penitent. “What a scare cat you will think I am!” she said ruefully. “I don’t know what time it was--about half an hour ago, I think--but I was sleeping when I heard voices. I went to the window and looked out. It was still rather dark; there are an awful lot of trees before the house, but I could see two men, and I wouldn’t have known one of them was Arthur, only I heard him speaking angrily.” “Did you hear anything he said?” “No, they were too far away. They were near the laurels that hide the house from the road. And then I saw Arthur strike the man, and they began to struggle, and that is all I saw. By the time I’d got downstairs they had disappeared.” “But you say you saw him? How could you?” Dick gave a version of his encounter with the lawyer that was more flattering to Arthur than was deserved. “But that couldn’t be true!” she said, in perplexity. “He hadn’t been to bed at all. What is the meaning of it, Dick?” “The Lord knows!” said Dick piously. “I wish my friend Puttler were here.” The car ran through the cutting and took the long, straight road to Willow House, they were turning into the drive when Dick saw a man walking in front of him. “There’s your Arthur,” he said, and she uttered a little cry of thankfulness. It was Arthur with a difference. His nose had been bleeding, his eye was slightly discoloured. In other circumstances Dick would have laughed, but the girl was so concerned with her brother’s injuries that it would have been brutal even to find anything amusing in the discomfiture of this dandified young lawyer. “It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I met a poacher and had a slight argument with him.” The knees of his new golfing knickers were soiled and torn; the knuckles of his hand were red and bleeding. Dick felt that it was not the moment to ask him questions, and followed the brother and sister into the house, an interested and cautious observer of events. The servants had been roused and one of them brought some coffee, and Dick, who had been half dead from sleepiness, accepted the steaming cup gratefully. “What _do_ you think has happened, Dick?” she asked, when Arthur had gone up to his room to treat his injuries, having refused all the assistance she offered. “I think he has told us what has happened. He had trouble with a poacher. In other words, he had a vulgar fight. It is one of those distressing happenings that the best of men cannot always avoid.” She shot a suspicious glance at him.