"Why, the man who impersonated my poor aunt!" she responded, tearfully. "But Mr. Dall said everybody was looking for me, and he intended to take me out of the country. I did not want to go--it is all too wicked!" She clung trembling to Sir Edgar, who was divided between his longing to wreak his vengeance on the prisoner who stood sullen and discomforted and his efforts to restore Lady Margaret. "You need not fear any trouble on that score, Lady Margaret," said Cleek, quietly, smiling at her. "It was Gunga Dall himself who murdered the man, his own brother. And all we want to find out is how your scarf came to be involved. When did you discover the trick that had been played?" "I never thought of there being any trick," she said with a little shiver. "Poor Auntie was always very queer and undemonstrative, even when I was a child, and, too, she always disliked me. That was why she kept me so long at school. So I never thought of its being any one else till I came down to meet Edgar--on the terrace. Then the sound of the laughter, and all men's laughter, caused me to look into the room. When I saw what I had believed to be my aunt, with her wig half off, smoking a big cigar and holding up my jewels----" She broke off with a little shudder and Ailsa Lorne, who stood near, leaned forward and took Lady Margaret's shaking hand into her own. "What happened afterward, Lady Margaret?" Cleek then asked. "Can you tell us? It is necessary evidence, you know----" "Yes," she said, bravely, "they gagged me and bound my eyes and laid me on a couch in the ballroom.... I don't know what happened then, but I found myself at last in the wine-cellar with the servant Aggie keeping watch over me. It seemed ages and ages before Gunga Dall came to me, and while Aggie was sleeping--she had been drinking all the time she was with me--he got me through the window, and out into the lane, where he had a carriage waiting. He said he was going to drive me to Lady Brenton, but when I found he was not, I got frightened and wondered if you had got the bit of paper I slipped from the window when I saw you. _Did_ you get it?" she turned to Ailsa, who nodded. "Yes, dear, and gave it to Sir Edgar." "Oh, I am so glad!" she said in a broken voice. "Well, after that he drove me to his own house, and promised to fetch Lady Brenton to me!" "The devil!" burst out Sir Edgar, impetuously, his face crimson with fury, his whole figure shaking, "as if he couldn't have brought you direct to us if he had wanted to----" "I never thought of that," she responded. "All I thought of was getting away from Cheyne Court. He said then that all the countryside was looking for me as I was accused of having murdered that awful creature whom I had believed to be my aunt. I wanted to confront them, but he wouldn't let me go. At last he said if I would give him my gold scarf, it would be the means of setting me free...."