"I think," I said to Vera, whose spirits rose a little when she heard my report, "that to-morrow morning I will run down to Oakham, to have another look at Houghton." "What on earth for?" she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise. "I intended asking father to-day, when I saw him at the hospital, if the report that he intended returning to Houghton were true. He seemed so hot and restless however, that I decided not to ask him until to-morrow. I do believe he is going to get better, don't you? But now, tell me what good do you think you will do by going out to Houghton?" "Good?" I answered. "I don't expect or intend to do good. No, it is merely that something--I can't tell you what--prompts me to go again to see the place." "How silly!" Vera declared, as I thought rather rudely. Modern girls are so dreadfully outspoken. I do sometimes wish we were back in the days when a matron would raise her hands in dismay and exclaim: "Oh, fie!" or "Oh, la!" when a young girl did aught that seemed to her "unladylike." Yet, in spite of Vera's remonstrance, I caught a train to Oakham early next morning. Sir Charles had had a restless night, the hospital porter told me on the telephone, before I started, but his condition was surprisingly satisfactory. Then I rang up Dr. Agnew. "Don't you think he may, after all, recover?" I inquired eagerly. In reply the doctor said he "only hoped and trusted that he might." More than that, he would not tell me. I gathered, therefore, that he still had serious fears. I arrived at the _Stag's Head_, in Oakham, in time for lunch. Directly after lunch I started out for Houghton in a hired car. What a lot had happened, I reflected, as in the same car in which the chauffeur had been shot, we purred down the main street, since I had last set out along that road. What a number of stirring incidents had occurred--incidents crowded into the space of a few weeks. But at last they seemed to be coming to an end. That thought relieved me a good deal. Ah, if only--if only Thorold would recover! The drive to Houghton from Oakham was a pretty one, past woods and rich grazing pastures until suddenly, turning into the great lodge-gates, we went for nearly a quarter of a mile up the old beech avenue to where stood the old Elizabethan house, a large, rambling pile of stone, so full of historic associations. On pulling up at the ancient portico, I found to my surprise, the front door ajar. I pushed it open and entered. There was nobody in the big stone hall--how well I remembered the last day when we had all had tea there after hunting, and that fateful message from the butler that "Mr. Smithson" had called to see Sir Charles. I made my way into the drawing-rooms, then into the morning-room, and afterwards into the dining-room. The doors were all unlocked, but the rooms were empty. It was while making my way towards the kitchen quarters that I heard footsteps somewhere in the house.