“Will you let me raise you so that it may be attended to?” he said, slipping his arm under her shoulders again.

She bore it mutely, but her senses seemed to swim, and she was obliged to lean her brow against his arm. Miss Beccles was already soaking a cold compress and would have laid it to the back of her head had not Carlyon taken it out of her hand and gently applied it to the bruise. Elinor sighed with relief and murmured, “Thank you. You are very good.”

“If someone would call Crawley to me again I will desire him to mix a glass of hartshorn and water,” said Francis. “Two glasses, for I think I should take a little myself. My hand is shaking dreadfully still, and I feel quite unwell. The thought of this horrid violence, following, as it does, the shock I have already sustained, has been too much for me. If it were not that I do trust I was able to be of some slight assistance to Mrs. Cheviot, I should be almost inclined to wish that I had not left my room. But I thought it right to make the effort, and so I did. The windows in my room fit very ill. There is a shocking draft, and no good could come of my remaining there.”

“Take a little more brandy, Mrs. Cheviot,” Carlyon said, picking up the glass again and wholly disregarding Francis’ remarks.

“Oh, I had rather not!” she begged.

“Yes, I dare say but it will do you good. Come!”

She lifted a wavering hand to take the glass and sipped a little, murmuring between sips, “I am sure my skull is cracked!”

“I am even more sure that it is not,” he replied. “You are feeling very dizzy and I dare say your head aches sadly, but it is only a bruise.”

“I might have guessed you would be odiously unfeeling.”

“Certainly you might, for you know I have not the least sensibility. Come, you are better already! You begin to talk more like yourself.”

“If my head did not swim so there is a deal I have stored up to say to you! You have used me abominably!”

“You shall tell me in what way I have done so presently,” he replied in a soothing tone.

“I warned you that I should very likely be found murdered in my bed!”

“Very true, but you have not been so found, and I cannot suppose it probable that you will be.”

“I am sure,” said Francis, rising and tottering to the table, “I am happy to hear you speak so confidently, Carlyon, but I cannot share your sanguine persuasions! When I reflect that this, according to what I have been told, is the second time some ruffian has broken into this house and committed a brutal act of violence, I wonder that you should remain so cool! I envy you your happy disposition, upon my word, I do!” He refilled his glass and had just raised it to his lips when Nicky came back into the room.

“What, still recruiting your strength?” Nicky said scornfully. “You may be easy! There is no one in the garden, and Bouncer is not come back. How do you do now, Cousin Elinor? Do you feel more the thing?”

“Oh, yes, thank you! I am better. There is not the least need for you to hold that pad to my head, my lord, for I can very well do it myself.”

“My love, let me wet it again, and then I will fashion a bandage to hold it in place,” said Miss Beccles, who had been hovering anxiously behind the sofa.

“Cousin Elinor, was that window open when you were struck down?” demanded Nicky.

“Oh, no! That is, I have no recollection that it was. The wind was blowing in at this side of the house, and I am sure I must have noticed. Why, did you find it open?”

“Yes, wide open, and the curtain partly torn down!”

She gave a nervous start and looked fearfully toward the window. “Do not say so! Did someone escape through it? But how did he come in? I heard nothing until a board, as I thought, creaked just behind me. Becky, you shut the door when you left me, did you not? Surely I must have heard it if anyone had opened it!”

“Oh, no, my love!” said Miss Beccles, tenderly binding the pad in position again. “I wonder you should not have noticed that I had been rubbing soap on the hinges! It squeaked so horridly, you remember, but there is nothing like soap to cure a creaking door!”

“Has anyone thought to see if anything of value is missing from the house?” inquired Francis. “I do not wish to appear to be putting myself too much forward, but it does seem to me—However, if it does not strike you as being of consequence, pray do not allow any suggestion of mine to weigh with you!”

As nobody was paying the least heed to him, this recommendation seemed unnecessary. Nicky was frowning portentously over thoughts of his own; Miss Beccles was busy tying a knot to her bandage; the sufferer lay with closed eyes; and Carlyon stood beside the sofa; looking down at her.

It was Nicky who broke the silence. “I do not see how it can have happened!” he announced suddenly.

“I dare say I imagined the whole,” murmured Elinor.

“Well, I mean I do not see why anyone should hit you on the head, Cousin. What were you doing?”

“Nothing,” she replied wearily. “I had been writing a letter which I laid by in the hope that Lord Carlyon might frank it for me.”

“I will certainly do so, but do not tease yourself now, Mrs. Cheviot.”

“Yes, but there’s no sense in it!” persisted Nicky. His eye alighted on the folded inventory still lying on the hearth rug. He instantly pounced on it. “What’s this? Six pairs linen sheets, monogrammed, in good order. Four ditto slightly darned—”

“It is only the inventory of all the linen which Becky had just given to me. I must have had it in my hand, but I do not precisely remember. I had gone over to the mantelpiece to try whether I could not wind up the clock, but it is locked, and I think—yes, I am sure—that I picked up the inventory again, meaning to put it safely by, when all at once something struck me such a blow!”

Nicky was about to say something, his eyes sparkling with excitement, when he caught Carlyon’s level gaze and subsided, flushing up to the roots of his hair in a very conscience-stricken way. His embarrassment was short-lived, however, for Barrow just then looked into the room to announce, with his customary lack of ceremony, that the doctor’s gig was coming up the drive.

Carlyon’s brows rose in slight surprise, but he said, “He is very welcome. Desire him to come in here, Barrow!”

“Why, yes, certainly!” said Francis. “I shall be only too glad to subordinate my claims to Mrs. Cheviot’s, but you must know that he is coming to see me, my dear Carlyon. I caught one of my putrid sore throats at poor Eustace’s funeral. I was sadly afraid I should do so for there was a dreadfully sharp wind blowing, and I should not at all wonder at it if the damp came through my boots while we stood round that depressing grave. I have scarcely closed my eyes all night, I assure you, for the least thing is so apt to bring on my tic, and you know that I have had a great deal to bear. And now this brutal shock coming hard upon the distressing news of my poor dear Louis! But I should not like to be thought selfish, and certainly the worthy doctor—I dare say an old-fashioned person, but he may at all events be able to make me up a paregoric draft that will not quite poison me—certainly he shall first come to Mrs. Cheviot.”

By the time he had reached the end of this self-sacrificing speech, the doctor was already in the room and bowing to Carlyon. Francis waved a languid hand toward the sofa, and said, “You will be so good as to attend to Mrs. Cheviot, sir, before you come up to my room. I shall leave you now, ma’am, in the fervent hope that you will soon find yourself greatly amended. Ah, Barrow, send Crawley to me, if you please! I shall need his arm to help me up the stairs. Indeed, I cannot imagine why he is not at hand. How callous! It is beyond everything!”

The doctor stared after him in blank bewilderment, and then turned his eyes toward Nicky, in a look of inquiry.

“Ay, that’s the fellow you have to hustle out of this house,” said Nicky frankly.

Carlyon interposed, saying quietly, “You are come just when you are wanted, Greenlaw. Mrs. Cheviot has suffered a fall and has bruised her head painfully. Pray do what you can to render her more comfortable! I’ll leave you, ma’am, for the present.”

She opened her eyes, at that. “Lord Carlyon, if you leave this house before I have had the opportunity of speaking to you, it will be the most monstrous thing ever I heard of or had thought possible—even in you!” she declared roundly.

“I have no intention of doing so, Mrs. Cheviot. I will return when Greenlaw has done what he may for you. Come, Nicky!”

Nicky allowed himself to be led from the room. He was plainly bursting with something he wanted to say and could hardly wait until he had dragged his brother into the parlor and firmly shut the door before he exclaimed, “Ned! I see it all! You were right!”

“Was I? In what way?”

“Why, in saying Francis was dangerous, to be sure! For nothing could be plainer! At first, I did not see why he should have done such a thing, but as soon as I found that inventory I had bubbled him! Lord, and you was only just in time to stop me blurting out what I was suspecting! I was so much surprised, you know, I did not consider what I was about. But I fancy there was no harm done!”

“No, none at all. In fact—But go on, Nicky!”

“I am as certain as that I stand here that it was Francis who struck Cousin Elinor down! I don’t know how such a puny fellow can have contrived to do it, but—”

“I fancy he may have used the paperweight from the desk.”

“What, you knew, then?”

“No, but I could see no other implement that might have been snatched up when he entered the room.”