proceed, Madam. The ring had rolled under the rug!”

Mrs. Wigglesworth gave him a grateful nod.

“Yes, it had. And when I removed the rug I saw it; but as I bent to pick it up I saw something else. In one place there was a stain, as large as the palm of my hand, a little pool of—it looks like blood.”

Mrs. Melville uttered an exclamation of horror.

The colonel’s face stiffened; but there was no change in his polite attention.

“May we be permitted to see this—ah, stain?” said he.

The three stepped through the corridor to the[99] outside door, and went into the chamber. The rug was flung to one side, and there on the gray velvet nap of the carpet was an irregular, sprawling stain about which were spattered other stains, some crimson, some almost black.

[99]

Millicent recoiled, shuddering. The colonel knelt down and examined the stains. “Yes,” he said very quietly, “you are right, it is blood.”

There was a tap on the door, which was opened immediately without waiting for a permission. Millicent, rigid with fright, could only stare helplessly at the erect figure, the composed, pale face and the brilliant, imperious eyes of her aunt.

“What did you say, Bertie?” said Rebecca Winter. “I think I have a right to the whole truth.”

[100]

CHAPTER VI THE VOICE IN THE TELEPHONE

“Well, Bertie?” Mrs. Winter had gone back to her parlor in the most docile manner in the world. Her submission struck Rupert on the heart; it was as if she were stunned, he felt.

He was sitting opposite her, his slender, rather short figure looking shrunken in the huge, ugly, upholstered easy-chair; he kept an almost constrained attitude of military erectness, of which he was conscious, himself; and at which he smiled forlornly, recalling the same pose in Haley whenever the sergeant was disconcerted.

“But, first,” pursued his aunt, “who was that red-headed bell-boy with whom you exchanged signals in the hall?”

The colonel suppressed a whistle. “Aunt Becky, you’re a wonder! Did you notice? And he simply 

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