A second note, from the anxious housekeeper, might help the effect of the few lines which Lord Harry had written.
Arthur's letter informed Iris that he had arranged to return at three o'clock.

Lord Harry's question to the groom, and the man's reply, instantly recurred to her memory: "Are there any strangers at Rathco ?"--"Two new men at work in the grounds." Arriving at the same conclusion which had already occurred to Lord Harry, Iris advised the housekeeper, in writing to Arthur, to entreat him to change the hour, secretly, at which he left his friend's house on the next day.

Warmly approving of this idea, Mrs.Lewson hurried into the parlour to write her letter.

"Don't go to bed yet, Miss," she said; "I want you to read it before I send it away the first thing to-morrow morning." Left alone in the hall, with the door open before her, Iris looked out on the night, thinking.
The lives of the two men in whom she was interested--in widely different ways--were now both threatened; and the imminent danger, at that moment, was the danger of Lord Harry.

He was an outlaw whose character would not bear investigation; but, to give him his due, there was no risk which he was not ready to confront for Arthur's sake.