"You won't go?
You'll stay here--stay here and face them?
Good Heavens! girl, are you mad?
Don't you know what this means?
It means that the secret is out--the secret is out, you hear! We must fly!" The woman told me that she distinctly heard Miss Muriel sobbing, while her father walked up and down the room speaking rapidly in a low tone.
Then he came out again and returned to his dressing-room, while Miss Muriel presumably changed from her evening-gown into a dark traveling-dress.
"Did she say anything to you ?" I inquired.
"Only that they were called away suddenly, sir.

But," the domestic added, "the young lady was very pale and agitated, and we all knew that something terrible had happened.

Mrs.Leithcourt gave orders that nothing was to be told to the guests, who dined alone, believing that their host and hostess had gone down to the village to see an old man who was dying.

That was the story we told them, sir." "And in the meantime the Leithcourts were in the express going to Carlisle ?" "Yes, sir.

They say in Dumfries that the police telegraphed after them, but they had reached Carlisle and evidently changed there, and so got away." By the administration of a judicious tip I was allowed to go up to Miss Muriel's room, an elegantly furnished little chamber in the front of the fine old place, with a deep old-fashioned window commanding a magnificent view across the broad Nithsdale.
The room had been tidied by the maids, but allowed to remain just as she had left it.