time--dull, hopeless, perpetual rain day after day, without a break
in the leaden sky. But at last there came a fine evening, and I went
down to the terrace to take a solitary walk after my long
imprisonment. It was between six and seven o'clock; Milly was
asleep, and there was no probability of my being wanted in the sick-
room for half an hour or so. I left ample instructions with my handy
little assistant, and went down for my constitutional, muffled in a
warm shawl.

It was dusk when I went out, and everything was unusually quiet, not
a leaf was stirring in the stagnant atmosphere. Late as it was, the
evening was almost oppressively warm, and I was glad to throw off my
shawl. I walked up and down the terrace in front of the Hall for
about ten minutes, and then went round towards the drawing-room
windows. Before I had quite reached the first of these, I was
arrested by a sound so strange that I stopped involuntarily to
listen. Throughout all that followed, I had no time to consider
whether I was doing right or wrong in hearing what I did hear; but I
believe if I had had ample leisure for deliberation, it would have
come to the same thing--I should have listened. What I heard was of
such vital consequence to the girl I loved, that I think loyalty to
her outweighed any treachery against the speaker.

The strange sound that brought me to a standstill close to the wide-
open window was the sound of a woman's passionate sobbing--such a
storm of weeping as one does not hear many times in a life. I have
never heard anything like it until that night.

Angus Egerton's sonorous voice broke in upon those tempestuous sobs
almost angrily: