“Now, what on earth does that mean?” he asked, and handed the telegram to the girl. She read-- “Take the Standerton jewels out of your safe and deposit them without fail in your bank to-night. If it is too late to send them to your bank place them under an armed guard.” It was signed “Gilbert Standerton.” CHAPTER XV. THE TALE THE DOCTOR TOLD The General read the telegram again. He was, despite his erratic temperament, a shrewd and intelligent man. “What does that mean?” he asked quietly for him. “Where is Gilbert? And where does he wire from?” He picked up the telegram and inspected it. It was handed in at the General Post Office at London at 6.35 p.m. The General’s hour for dining was consonant with his breakfast hour, and it was a quarter after nine when the dinner gong brought Edith Standerton down from her room. She was worried; she could not understand the reference to the jewels. What had made Gilbert send this message? Had she known more of the circumstances of what had happened on the previous afternoon she would have wondered rather how he was able to send the message. The General took the warning seriously, but not so seriously that he was prepared to remove his jewellery to any other receptacle. Indeed, the purchase of the safe had been made necessary by the fact that beyond the butler’s strong room, which was strong only in an etymological sense, there was no security for property of any value. He had made an inspection of the jewels in the safe and had relocked the door, leaving a servant in the library, with strict instructions not to come out until he was instructed to leave by his master. Edith came down to find that another guest had arrived, a guest who greeted her with a cheery and familiar smile. “How do you do, Doctor?” she said. “It is not so long since I met you at mother’s. You remember me?” “I remember you perfectly,” said Dr. Barclay-Seymour. He was a tall, thin man with a straggling iron-grey beard and a high forehead. A little absent in his manner, he conveyed the impression, never a very flattering one, that he had matters more weighty to think about than the conversation which was being addressed to him. He was, perhaps, the most noteworthy of the provincial doctors. He came out of his shell sufficiently to recognise her and to remember her mother. Mrs. Cathcart had been a great friend of Barclay’s. They had grown up together. “Your mother is a very wonderful woman,” said Dr. Barclay-Seymour as he took the girl in to dinner, “a remarkable woman.” Edith was seized with an almost overwhelming temptation to ask why. It would have been unpardonable of her had she done so, but never did a word so tremble upon a human being’s lips as that upon hers.