"How loyal you are! What a woman you are! What a friend!" said Cleek admiringly. "Shall I tell you something? I have hope that one of those friends will be wholly cleared before another day comes; that something may happen to-night which will make Geoff Clavering the happiest of men and you and Lady Katharine almost beside yourselves with joy. No, don't ask me what it is just yet a while. I have dreams and fancies and odd notions like other men sometimes; and I am a great believer in the theory of Loisette that a likeness of events acting upon a weary brain is apt to produce similar results in certain highly strung natures. But will you walk with me as far as the angle of the wall on the other side of the shrubbery, Miss Lorne? Dollops is waiting there for me. I have something of great importance for him to do to-night, and I think you will be interested in it. Will you come? Thank you! This way then, please, as quietly as you can."
Taking her hand and keeping always on the grass and always in the dark, where the shadows of the trees lay between them and the lighted windows of the Grange, he led her on to something which even he had not foreseen and never for a moment guessed.
At the angle of the wall he stopped and began to whistle softly "Kathleen Mavourneen." As upon another occasion, before he had completed the third bar, the wall door gaped open and flashed shut again and Dollops was in the dark, tree-crowded enclosure with him. It was a rather more excited Dollops than he had expected to find, however, for Cleek had no more than just begun to apologize for his lateness when the boy was on him like a pouncing cat and was cutting into his low-spoken words in a panting sort of whisper:
"For Gawd's sake, gov'ner. Come quick, sir!" he said, as he laid a tense, nervous grip on Cleek's arm. "'Nother door in the wall, sir. Higher up where them mulberry trees is thickest. Woman prowlin' round, gov'ner. Been prowlin' round this ten minutes past and been to that door and tried it three times a'ready. Woman in a pink dress, sir, and a long dark cloak reachin' almost to the ground!"
"Margot!" said Cleek in an exultant whisper. "Margot at last, by George!"
Then, for the second time that night, he received a shock.