"What was it? I don't know; it's no good your looking at me as if you thought I did. I've been able to get no farther than where you see me now. Like you, I heard what seemed to me to be two men quarrelling, so I came down hoping to prevent mischief being done." "It was very plucky of you to come down all alone. And you don't know what's happened?" "No more than you. I'm not very well up in the geography of the house, but I thought that the argument was taking place in one of the rooms on the other side; but before I could get down it had stopped. It was the sudden stopping I did not like." "Nor I, to be frank. Shall I help you upstairs, or will you stay here while I go and see? We may both of us be false alarmists; let's hope we are." She seemed to be considering. "I think you had better leave me where I am, only--mind you're not long. It's very silly of me, but I don't feel as if I'd care to be left alone too long." She watched his tall figure, shrouded in a long grey dressing-gown which covered his pyjamas, across the hall. Directly he was out of sight she rose from her chair; leaning on the back of it, standing on one foot, she looked eagerly about the hall. The one electric light illumined the spot on which she stood; it scarcely penetrated the shadows beyond. She hesitated whether to switch on other lights, to make sure that no hidden eyes were watching, but it was only with difficulty that she could move; there was not time, the major might be back at any moment. She took the bag from underneath the cushion; considering it was only a small, brown, brief bag, it was curiously heavy. All the time she had been talking to Major Reith she had been wondering what would be the nearest convenient place in which to hide it, if opportunity offered. Against the wall, within a few feet of where she was standing, was an old oak chest, which was sometimes used as a seat, which was covered with a piece of dark blue velvet, embroidered almost as if it had been an altar cloth. Lady Cantyre had told her that it was half-full of things, but she herself did not know what they were; no one ever looked inside. If the lid was open, there might be room for the bag; it would be the very place. She managed to get as far as the chest, hopping, for the most part, on one foot. The lid was open. She raised it. Pressing back the velvet cover, she saw that there was room. She thrust in the bag, lowered the lid, and returned to where the major had left her. She would have liked to sink into the chair, only to relieve her foot; something stopped her. She might have been guilty of some crime, her bearing was so strange. She pressed her hand to her side, as if to calm the beating of her heart. She endeavoured to peer into all the shadowy places in the great hall; there were so many places in which, in that light, a spy might be hidden. Suppose she had been seen?