"You mean Miss Gilbert? I have; and--I'm rather prepossessed with her. I confess that Frances' ecstasies made me a trifle nervous; but so far as appearance and manner go she strikes me as being distinctly good style, as girls run nowadays. But she--or someone--might have let us know that she was coming, considering, so far as we're concerned, that she's a perfect stranger. She seems to have dropped from the clouds; she doesn't seem as if she were the kind of girl who'd do it. Who's the Mr Frazer she speaks of?" "Mr Frazer?" "She says she came with Mr Frazer--Eric Frazer?" "Eric Frazer? She must mean Strathmoira." "Strathmoira?" "Of course, his name is Frazer--Eric Frazer." "But, why should she speak of the Earl of Strathmoira as Mr Frazer?" "My dear Harold, it's no use putting questions to me, because I keep putting questions to myself, and I get no answers. Directly I begin to think I feel I am getting out of my depth, so I try not to think. I console myself with the reflection that I always have known that Strathmoira's stark, staring mad." "But, do you mean to say that Strathmoira brought Miss Gilbert to this house without letting us have the least hint that he was coming, at goodness knows what hour of the night?" "You may well say goodness only knows. You had been gone what seemed to me hours, and I was just getting into bed, when I heard a vehicle coming up the drive. I called to Parkes not to open the door till he had asked who it was through the window; but I suppose I must have spoken louder than I meant, and of course the windows in my room were wide open; and, as you know, it's right over the hall door, which for the moment I'd forgotten; anyhow, a voice answered from without: 'It's all right, Adela, don't you let me be the cause of Parkes straining his vocal chords; it isn't burglars, it's yours to command.' When I realised that the voice was Strathmoira's you might have knocked me down with a feather." "I daresay. Why, how long is it since we've seen or heard anything of the fellow?" "As you put it, goodness only knows. I replied to him through the window: 'I'm alone in the house, I don't know if you're aware what time it is; I'm just going to bed--couldn't you come round in the morning?'" "He answered: 'No, I couldn't; I've got Miss Gilbert here, Frances' friend, so perhaps you won't mind hurrying down to let us in!'" "Pretty cool, upon my word." "Cool! When Parkes had opened the door, and I went down, looking I don't know how, he was as much at his ease as if he'd dropped in to pay an afternoon call; and there was a tall slip of a girl, with black hair, big grey eyes, and a white face, whom I took to at once." "So did I, when I saw her just now."