"Just as I was examining it," continued Miss Wynne, ignoring the interruption in her eagerness to continue, "the man came in, and recognized me. I knew him to be one of the confederates of Blake and he said that he had seen Bobby kill the real Miss Cheyne but he would keep silent if I paid him. Outside in the lane I found Edgar--Dr. Verrall." She glanced shyly up at the pale young doctor, as if asking permission to finish her tale, and when he nodded emphatically, she continued speaking in a low, colourless voice: "He had heard the shots, and was about to investigate, but when he saw me, he was so afraid lest I should be seen and brought into the matter, that he turned back down the lane to see if the coast was clear. I should have escaped even then had it not been for that gold scarf which I suddenly remembered I had left on the landing. I ran back for it, and it was then that that young assistant of yours caught me." She broke off, her story evidently finished. "But who was the other woman?" put in Sir Edgar, as Jennifer sank back in her chair, apparently exhausted by the recital. "I think," said Cleek, softly, "that Lady Margaret would probably know her." "Aggie, the woman who waited on me," the girl cried. "Why, of course, that accounts for it. She came down into the cellar frightfully excited and did nothing but drink and drink. That was how the Hindoo, the other man I mean, was able to get me out of the vault. She had dropped off into a drunken stupor and nothing seemed to arouse her." "I never thought of your being in the house," said Miss Wynne, as she looked piteously at Lady Margaret; "please forgive me! You don't know how desperate I was for money." "It's all right," replied Lady Margaret, impulsively. "I don't think they would have hurt me, only when I discovered the trick, they did not know what to do. Thank Heaven I am safe out of it." She stretched out an impulsive hand to the other girl and their fingers met silently. But Lady Brenton was eager to get on with the story. "How did you come to discover where Margaret had been taken?" she asked Cleek who had sat silent during all this recital, listening to it with occasional nods as though he had heard it all already. "To think that I let that devil sit in my drawing room while all the time he was keeping her a prisoner----"