Now Miss Blake resented this frightfully. Lucy might go to bed; it was best for her as she was fatigued; but that Sir Karl should thus unceremoniously leave her to her own company at nine o'clock, she could not pardon. As to letter writing, the post had gone out. It was evident he thought nothing of her, even as a friend; nothing. Dropping her forehead upon her hands, she sat there she knew not how long. When she looked up it was nearly dark. Her thoughts had wandered to Mr. Cattacomb, and she wondered whether he would be arriving by the last train. Throwing a shawl over her shoulders, Miss Blake went into the garden, and thence by one of the small private gates into the lonely road. It was still and solitary. The nightingales were singing now, and she paced along, lost in thought, past the Maze and onwards. She had reached nearly as far as the road to Foxwood, not having met a soul, when the advance of two or three passengers from the station told her the train was in. They turned off to the village, walking rapidly: but neither of them was the expected clergyman. "What can have kept him?" she murmured, as she retraced her steps. There was no moon, but the summer sky was light: not much of it, however, penetrated to the sides of the road through the overshadowing trees. Miss Blake had nearly gained the Maze when she heard the approach of footsteps. Not caring to be seen out so late alone, she drew back between the hedge and the clump of trees at the gate, and waited. To her vexation, peeping forth from her place of shelter, she recognised Sir Karl Andinnian. He was stealing along under shadow of the hedge too--_stealing_ along, as it seemed to Miss Blake, covertly and quietly. When he reached the gate he looked up the road and down the road, apparently to make sure that no one was within sight or hearing: then he took a small key from his pocket, unlocked the strong gate with it, entered, locked it after him again, and disappeared within the trees of the veritable maze. To say that Miss Blake was struck with amazement would be saying little. What could it mean? What could Sir Karl want there? He had told his wife he knew not who lived in it. And yet he carried a private key to the place, and covertly stole into it on this the first night of his return! The queer ideas that floated through Miss Blake's mind, rapidly chasing each other, three parts bewildered her. They culminated in one emphatically spoken sentence. "I should like to get inside too!" Softly making her way across the road to enter the Court's grounds by the nearest gate, she chanced to lift her eyes to Clematis Cottage. The venetian shutters were closed. But, peering through one of them from the dark room, was a face that she was sure was Mr. Smith's. It looked just as though he had been watching Sir Karl Andinnian. CHAPTER XIII. Miss Blake gets in.