She found Lucretia Brown huddled up in a chair before a dead fire, fast asleep. Lucretia had never been trained out of her habit of “waiting up.” It was her firm conviction that only this practice of hers saved her mistress from a terrible fate. She woke with a start and came reeling to her feet. “Oh, miss!” she gasped out. “What time is it?” Leslie glanced at the mantelpiece. “Three o’clock,” she said, “and a fine morning! Why aren’t you in bed, you poor, knock-kneed girl?” “I’m not knock-kneed and never was,” protested Lucretia. “Three o’clock, miss? What a time!” She shivered. And then, morbidly curious: “Has anything been up, miss?” “More things are ‘up’ than will ever come down, I think,” replied Leslie, as she dropped into a chair. “There’s been a murder.” “Good heavens!” said the shocked Lucretia. And then, with pardonable curiosity: “Who done it?” “If I knew ‘who done it,’ I’d be a very contented female.” Leslie stifled a yawn. “Run the bath, Lucretia, make me some hot milk, and don’t wake me till ten o’clock.” “If I’m awake then,” said Lucretia ominously. “I never see such a place as this. You turn night into day. Did he have his throat cut?” She returned to the tragedy. “No. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it was quite ghastly enough.” She dragged herself to her feet and went to her desk, turning over the letters that had arrived by the night mail. There was one which looked promising. She tore off the end of the envelope, read its contents, and locked the document away in a drawer. A little while later, before Lucretia had run the water from the bath, Leslie Maughan, snug between sheets, was sleeping dreamlessly. She woke with a dim remembrance of the rattle of teacups and of Lucretia’s calling her. Partly opening her eyes, she saw the cup by her bedside. She was horribly tired; bed was a warm and luxurious place; she must have dozed for the sound of voices wakened her. Her bedroom led from her sitting room and the door was half open. Two people were speaking--Lucretia and somebody else whose voice was familiar. “I will wait. Please don’t wake Miss Maughan especially for me.” Leslie sat up in bed. Through the closing door which the maid was jealously guarding, she saw the big, straight figure of a woman. Lady Raytham! In an instant she was out of bed, thrust her feet into slippers, and pulled her dressing gown about her. She stopped only at the mirror to brush back her hair. Lady Raytham was standing in the middle of the study, a bright coal fire was burning, and the room, at that early hour of the morning, had a special attraction for its young owner. But Jane Raytham’s presence seemed, for some unaccountable reason, to lend it a new distinction, as a great bunch of Easter lilies, or a bowl of narcissus, might have done. “Good-morning. I’m sorry to be so early. I hope I did not disturb you?”