He sank down on a seat, and lifted his hand to his brow with a bewildered air, as if scarcely realising the situation. "This is the work of an enemy," he murmured. If his words were true, the enemy was certainly one who knew how to strike home. No mortification--not even Daphne's refusal of his love--could have been more bitter to the artist than the knowledge that his adored masterpiece was in the hands of an enemy capable of destroying it. "Let all the servants be sent for," cried the Baronet. "What does all this mean? First it is a book that vanishes, then a picture." "And next--_a lady_," murmured a voice. It was the doctor who spoke, but his tones were so low that they reached no ear but mine. I stared at him, wondering what he meant. "A book? What book?" cried Florrie. The Baronet described the missing volume, relating the circumstances under which he came to lose it. The guests shook their heads. They could give no account of its disappearance. All the servants, young and old, male and female, now came trooping into the hall, with wonder depicted on their faces at being thus strangely summoned. "Now, Fruin," said the Baronet, addressing the butler, whose duty it was to see that the gallery was locked at night, "let me ask you if the fastenings of these windows," and he pointed to the long line of casements, "were all as secure when you examined them this morning as they were when you left them last night?" The butler murmured an affirmative reply. "You locked the doors at both ends of the gallery?" "I did, Sir Hugh." The Baronet turned to his housekeeper. "There was nothing, I suppose, Mrs. Goldwin, in any part of the house this morning to lead you to suspect that the Abbey had been entered during the night?" The good dame asserted that there had been nothing to lead her to that suspicion. "Very well, then," continued the Baronet, scanning the faces of the assembled servants with a keen eye; "let me ask if any of you can account for the disappearance of a picture--a very valuable picture. It was hanging on this part of the wall last night. It is not here now, you see." The servants began to interchange significant glances, and I knew that in their own minds they were connecting the disappearance of the picture with the ghostly figure supposed to haunt the gallery. "The thing couldn't go without hands, you know," resumed Sir Hugh; "and as you are certain that no burglars entered the place last night, it follows that the picture must have been removed by some one in the Abbey. Can any of you tell me what has become of it?" "It always was an uncanny picture," remarked a little housemaid. "When I was dusting it the other day the figure stared at me with its dead eyes. I am sure they moved once."