The door of her step-mother's room was open, and Lady Ellis called to her. One single moment of rebellion, of wish to escape, and then she remembered that she had not been in at all that morning, and also that it was well to avoid observation just now. Lady Ellis sat as Mr. Thornycroft had left her; her dark hair drawn simply from her wasted face, her purple morning-gown tied at the waist with a cord and tassel, its lace ruffles falling over her thin white hand. "I was just going to ring and ask you to come up, Mary Anne. I _must_ hear the particulars of this dreadful mystery; I cannot rest until they are told. Look at them!" She pointed to the heights. Dotting the plateau, peeping in at the round tower, holding hands and waists for security as they bent forward over the edge to look at the scene of the tragedy below, were the idlers. Mary Anne sat down near the table, her elbow on it, her head leaning on her hand, her eyes bent on the carpet, and told the particulars that the world knew. Lady Ellis heard them to the end without comment. "But why should he have gone on the plateau at all?" she questioned. "I don't know. He did go. As I stood at the door watching him off, he turned from the road to the plateau. I saw him. I saw him cross the railings." "And your brother Richard saw him?" "Yes, as he was coming off. They stood talking for a minute or two, Richard says. Cyril came up then, and he started to walk a little way with Robert Hunter." "But what does Cyril say? Where is he?" "He has not been home since. They suppose he went on to Jutpoint and slept there. Nothing more except this is known." "But Mr. Hunter must have come back again?" "Of course he must. It is his coining back that is so unaccountable." "And why--why should Cyril walk to Jutpoint, unless he walked with Mr. Hunter?" resumed Lady Ellis after a pause. Miss Thornycroft shook her head. It was in truth so much involved in doubt and mystery from beginning to end, that she felt unable to cope with it, even by conjecture, she said faintly. "The terrible point in it all seems to be in his having come back again." "Nay, the terrible point is the attack upon him," dissented her step-mother. "It might have been an accidental shot, after all. At what hour was it supposed to take place?" Miss Thornycroft could not say. "Of course--yes--it might have been only accidental," she assented with whitening lips. "Mary Ann, how ill you look!" "Do I? It frightened me, you see. And I have a dreadful headache," she added, rising to escape those eyes bent on her with so much curiosity. "I must go and lie down on the bed, if you will spare me." "Lie on my sofa," said Lady Ellis. "No, thank you. Shut in by myself, I may get to sleep." "Tell me one thing," and Lady Ellis laid her hand on her step-daughter's arm. "Is any one suspected?" "No; oh no." "I suppose, Mary Ann, it is quite sure that he is _dead?_"