His room was above the drawing-room, and he could hear Lady Ruth's clear, rather high voice mingling with the deep tones of a man's, in a confused, murmuring duet which after a few moments died away and was followed by the distant sound of a closing door.

It was not difficult to deduce from these sounds that Lord Ashiel had arrived, and that the little party of three had gone in to dinner.

It was half an hour more before Gimblet rose, and walked quietly over to the window. He drew the blind cautiously aside and looked out. Already the days were growing shorter, and the little house, embowered in trees, and shut in by a tall hill from the western sky, was nearly completely engulfed in darkness. Below him, on the right, he could just discern the top of the porch, and beyond it a faint glow of light rose from the window of the dining-room.

It did not need a very remarkable degree of activity to clamber from the window to the porch, and so down to the ground. To Gimblet it was as easy as going downstairs. In two minutes he was stealing away under the trees in the direction of Inverashiel Castle.

"The worst of this Highland air," he said to himself as he walked along, "is that it makes one so fearfully hungry, even here on the West Coast. I could have done very nicely with my dinner. But such is life. And it's lucky I am not entirely without provisions."

So saying, he took a box of chocolates from his pocket and began to demolish the contents.




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