The Chapters

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

(Kept in phonograph.)

27 May.—Home at one this morning from Quincey’s dinner. I had gone with the determination to be cheerful, which is perhaps the surest means of making one’s friends uncomfortable; but he would have none of my preparations. He took my hat and gloves himself, and put a hand upon my shoulder.

“Jack,” said he, “you have brought your professional face. Leave it here with your hat. There are no patients upstairs.”

There was something so kindly in his manner that I could have struck him for it, or embraced him; and, being an Englishman, I did neither, but asked whether Arthur had come.

“Not yet. We have five minutes to practise looking surprised at his good fortune.”

Arthur came before the five minutes were over. For an instant we were all three absurdly formal. Then he caught a hand of each of us, and the difficulty was past. He brought messages, as he had promised; but what they were I shall not record. There are things which a man may bear to hear once, and be the better for hearing, though he has no wish to have them spoken back to him by a machine.

Quincey had arranged a little round table, so that there should be no question of places. He made Arthur carve, on the plea that a man about to establish a household should qualify himself for its responsibilities; and when Arthur protested that the bird was already carved, he said that this was the first lesson, to discover how much of a husband’s work could be done before he came home.

We laughed a great deal. I had not thought that I could laugh so soon.

After dinner Quincey filled our glasses, and stood up. He had evidently prepared a speech, for he put his hand into his breast-pocket; but he withdrew it empty.

“Art,” he said, “she has chosen you. Here’s to her judgment!”

That was all. Arthur tried to answer, and could not for a little while. Then he said:—

“I know what you both are. She knows it too.”

I was glad that Quincey began at once to tell a story of our old travelling days, in which Arthur’s judgment had been less happy; for the silence had become trying. Before we separated we had settled that, whatever changes marriage might bring, none of us should wait for an invitation when another was in trouble. Quincey insisted upon shaking hands over it.

“Three signatures,” said he, “and no lawyer’s fee.”

I slept for four hours on my return, without assistance. This is worth recording.

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

28 May.

“My dearest Mina,—

“Arthur has told me about the dinner, though I am sure he left out all the things I most wanted to hear. Men are very odd correspondents even when they speak instead of write. He could tell me exactly what wine they drank, and that Mr. Morris had obtained some particular American thing which the cook did not understand; but when I asked what they said, he answered, ‘Oh, we talked!’ As if I had supposed that they sat there making signs!

“But I know they were good to him, and I love them for it. You need not look severe over that word, dear; you understand perfectly what I mean. Arthur says that Jack—that is Dr. Seward—looked tired at first, but was quite himself afterwards. I wish I could be sure what being quite himself means. We use such comfortable little expressions when we do not want to think any further.

“Mamma is already considering curtains. Is it not wonderful that happiness, which seems to fill the whole world, should have to be measured at last in yards? She asked Arthur whether he preferred green or blue, and he looked at me and said that either would do. I told him that such indifference promised badly; whereupon he said he would have both. So you see how much assistance I shall receive.

“But you must come and help me, Mina. Write and tell me when your school will release you, and whether you have heard again from Jonathan. When I am happy I want you so much that I feel selfish even in wishing for you; for perhaps your letter will say that he is coming home, and then I shall have to be content with a very small corner of your thoughts.

“Your loving “Lucy.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

29 May.—Renfield this morning put a question to me before I had spoken to him.

“Will Miss Westenra have a house of her own when she marries, doctor?”

I confess that I was startled. The conjunction of that name with this room, and with the voice in which I had heard so many tedious arguments concerning food and exercise, was peculiarly disagreeable.

“What do you know of Miss Westenra?” I asked.

He looked at me with an expression of injured patience, and laid his finger upon a newspaper on the table. There was a brief announcement of the engagement. I had not seen it.

“I can read,” he said. “You gentlemen are apt to forget that.”

I asked why the matter interested him.

“A new establishment requires a secretary. I have kept accounts. I have conducted correspondence. A young lady who is making a fortunate marriage might be disposed to assist a man whose circumstances are less fortunate.”

He spoke with considerable composure, and had already written out an application in a small, neat hand. It began with congratulations, passed to a statement of his qualifications, and ended with a request that the recipient should obtain his discharge and take him into her employment. The transition was managed with some skill.

“Why select this lady?” I asked.

“Because there is an address,” he answered, pointing again to the paper. “The others give only names.”

Here was sufficient explanation of what had at first disturbed me. I had supplied the personal significance myself.

When I told him that no application of this nature could be forwarded without consideration, he became angry; but he presently recovered himself, and asked whether I would give him a character for arithmetic. I said that I should first have to examine his work.

He immediately requested paper.

I have directed that he shall have it. There may be some advantage in giving his attention a definite occupation. Yet I must watch my own motives. I was much nearer to refusing him when he mentioned her name than when he demanded his liberty.

Letter, Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra.

30 May.

“My dearest Lucy,—

“Your letter made me laugh, and then made me very nearly cry; which is a foolish return for so much happiness. I shall help with the curtains if you will trust me, though I fear that I shall begin by asking the price, and so spoil all the poetry of furnishing.

“I cannot yet tell you when I shall be free. There are examination papers to be copied, and one of the teachers has been called home, so that we must each take a little more work. I am glad of it just now, for I have had a letter concerning Jonathan which I do not quite know how to understand.

“It is from a stranger in Vienna. I enclose it, for I want you to tell me whether I am unreasonable in wishing that Jonathan had written himself. Of course a lost bag would be a great inconvenience; but surely he could borrow pen and paper as easily as ask another person to use them.

“I have written to Mr. Hawkins, and have copied the letter for him. It was good practice for the typewriter, although I made more mistakes than usual. How tiresome it is that one’s fingers should share one’s anxieties!

“Do not let this trouble you, dear. I would rather have your plain opinion than comfort which you did not believe. You have always given me that, even when we were little girls and I wanted you to say that my crooked seams were straight.

“Ever your loving “Mina.”

Letter enclosed in the foregoing, from Herr Franz Adler to Miss Mina Murray.

Vienna, 28 May.

“Honoured Madam,—

“At the request of an English gentleman giving the name of Mr. Jonathan Harker, I write to inform you that his journey has been delayed through the loss of a travelling-bag containing papers necessary to his business.

“The gentleman attended at my office yesterday afternoon, seeking assistance with certain railway inquiries. He stated that he was a solicitor of Exeter, and that you expected intelligence of his movements. He gave me your name and direction upon a card, and desired me particularly to assure you that he was in good health.

“He expects that the missing property will shortly be recovered, and begs that you will not be uneasy should some days pass without a further letter. He proposes to continue his journey as soon as the matter can be arranged.

“I must explain that my acquaintance with the gentleman is confined to this interview. I undertake correspondence and translation for travellers, and send the present letter in the ordinary course of my occupation.

“Should you desire to communicate with him through me, I shall retain your letter until he calls, as he has promised to do. I cannot give you his present lodging, which he did not name.

“I remain, honoured Madam, “Your obedient servant, “Franz Adler.”

Letter, Peter Hawkins to Miss Mina Murray.

Exeter, 31 May.

“My dear Miss Murray,—

“Your letter has received my immediate attention. I am sorry that you should have been put to any anxiety, and beg that you will allow me to make the necessary inquiries before you act upon the communication from Vienna.

“There are several particulars which require explanation. I have therefore telegraphed to the writer, asking for a description of the gentleman who visited him, and for the exact nature of the assistance requested.

“A young man travelling upon business may meet with a delay without having any serious misfortune to report. Nevertheless, Jonathan knows the importance of keeping us informed, and I am unwilling to accept a stranger’s assurance in place of his own.

“Pray send me the original letter when your friend has returned it. Keep the envelope also. Your careful copy has been of much service, but in business the smallest circumstance may sometimes decide a question.

“Believe me, my dear young lady, “Yours very sincerely, “Peter Hawkins.”

Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Dr. Seward.

31 May.

“My dear Jack,—

“Art tells me that you have been working harder than ever since our dinner. That was not in the agreement. We undertook to stand by one another, and you have no right to put yourself where it takes a keeper with a bunch of keys to find you.

“Come and breakfast with me on Tuesday. There will be nobody else, and you may talk shop if you must. I have been thinking that I did too much of the talking the other night. A fellow who keeps the whole table laughing may fancy he is helping his friends when he is only saving himself the trouble of listening.

“You listened well, old man. I noticed it.

“Yours always, “Quincey.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

2 June.—Lucy returned the letter by the first post, with a dear little note, very sensible and very unlike the comfort which people give merely because they cannot endure another person’s uncertainty. She thinks I was right to write to Mr. Hawkins. I have sent him both letter and envelope.

I had not intended to begin my journal until we were together; but there is some relief in setting things down exactly. A thought which is quite manageable upon paper becomes so large when one carries it about all day without employment for it.

I made two lists this evening, one of what I know and one of what I only suppose. The first was very short. The second filled nearly a page, and I tore it up. Jonathan would have laughed at such evidence being offered in a court.

Yet there is one thing which I cannot dismiss. Herr Adler is careful to say that the gentleman gave Jonathan’s name. He does not say simply that he met Jonathan. Perhaps it is only a business form; indeed, Mr. Hawkins himself is particular about such distinctions. I wish I had never learned to notice them.

3 June.—A letter from Mr. Hawkins this morning, asking whether Jonathan had taken a brown leather travelling-bag with brass fittings. He had. I packed some of his things in it myself. There was a small repair beside the handle, where the leather had worn.

I sent this description at once. It seemed, while I wrote it, that I must be helping to bring him home. One is grateful for anything that can be done with the hands.

Later.—I have finished all the examination papers. There was an error in the numbering which would have caused much confusion, and I was fortunate enough to find it before the copies were distributed. The headmistress thanked me. I could scarcely answer her, for I remembered how pleased Jonathan would be to hear that I had been useful.

I shall put away my writing now. There can be no further post to-night.

Telegram, Peter Hawkins to Miss Mina Murray.

4 June.

“Vienna police have detained Jonathan’s impersonator with his bag and your address. Jonathan’s whereabouts unknown. Am making further inquiries. Hawkins.”

In the waiting-room a small boy was endeavouring to detach a postage-stamp from an envelope by breathing on it. He looked up as Eve passed, and, finding that she was not the person he had been sent to fetch, resumed his task with the air of a man whose day had been wasted by interruptions.

Outside, the rain had ceased. A watery sun was making a tentative examination of Shaftesbury Avenue, apparently with a view to deciding whether it was worth doing anything about. Eve paused on the pavement. She had several hours to dispose of before her appointment with Lord Emsworth, and it occurred to her that she might as well begin by restoring her benefactor’s umbrella.

She turned towards Dover Street.

The Drones Club, approached at close quarters, had an even more masculine and exclusive appearance than it had presented from the opposite pavement. Eve, who would have entered a lion’s den with comparative composure if she had known one of the lions socially, hesitated before mounting the steps. Then she reflected that a building which contained a young man capable of distributing umbrellas could not be wholly forbidding, and rang the bell.

The porter received her with that restrained benevolence which is the hallmark of the really good club porter. If Eve had come to offer him the throne of a small European kingdom, he would have conveyed by precisely the same movement of the eyebrows that he would see what could be done.

“I have brought back an umbrella.”

“Yes, miss.”

“A gentleman lent it to me this morning.”

“Yes, miss. What name?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“The gentleman’s name, miss?”

“No. That’s just the difficulty. He was very tall.”

The porter remained attentive. Tallness, his manner suggested, was a useful beginning, but scarcely brought the thing within the sphere of practical politics.

“And he wore an eyeglass.”

A faint light of intelligence appeared in the porter’s eye.

“Indeed, miss?”

“And he hadn’t a hat.”

This, though offered by Eve as a culminating clue, seemed to depress rather than stimulate him.

“Gentlemen sometimes come out without their hats, miss.”

“Yes, I suppose they do. Could I leave a note?”

The porter supplied paper, envelope, and a pen which, after a brief preliminary struggle, consented to write.

“Thank you so much for saving my hat,” wrote Eve. “I am returning the umbrella quite dry, and very grateful.”

She read this through. It appeared to cover the ground. She put it in the envelope and handed it across.

“If you could give him that?”

“Certainly, miss. And your name?”

“Miss Eve Halliday.”

“Thank you, miss.”

He placed the note carefully beside the letter-rack and the umbrella in its stand. Eve departed, feeling that she had done all that could reasonably be expected of a woman who had received an umbrella from a total stranger.

The porter watched her go with approval. Then the telephone rang, a member demanded a taxi, and a messenger arrived with a parcel which, he stated, must be delivered personally to a gentleman who had left for Scotland on the previous evening. In the pressure of these affairs the note remained beside the letter-rack.

The umbrella, however, began almost immediately to lead an active life.

* * * * *

The Honourable Hugo Walderwick was not a man whom Nature had equipped for bearing losses with a sunny smile. He was especially attached to his umbrella, which possessed a malacca handle, a gold band, and the reassuring solidity of an object that had cost somebody else two guineas. It had been a birthday present from an aunt.

When, therefore, an hour earlier, the cloak-room attendant had informed him that Mr. Psmith had taken it out, his first emotion had been incredulity and his second a warm desire to see Mr. Psmith.

He had now found him.

Psmith was in the smoking-room, examining the financial columns of a newspaper. Having severed his connection with the fish business on the previous night, he felt that he ought to keep in touch with the larger movements of commerce.

“Here, I say,” said Walderwick.

Psmith lowered the paper.

“Ah, Comrade Walderwick. You find me at leisure. Sit down and tell me everything.”

“Did you take my umbrella?”

“Your umbrella?”

“Out of the cloak-room.”

Psmith regarded him thoughtfully.

“Before we go further, let us be sure that we are discussing the same object. Has it a handle?”

“Of course it has a handle.”

“And a sort of arrangement at the other end for discouraging rain?”

“Look here——”

“Then I think we have established its identity. What of it?”

“What of it? You took it without asking.”

Walderwick held the recovered article before him as if inviting it to corroborate his statement.

Psmith inserted his monocle.

“A handsome specimen. I congratulate you. Are you open to an offer?”

“What?”

“I should like to buy it.”

“It isn’t for sale.”

“Twenty pounds,” said Psmith.

There are remarks which arrest the attention more readily than others. This was one of them. Walderwick’s mouth, which had opened to deliver a further instalment of his views, remained open, but the views did not emerge.

“Twenty pounds?”

“Guineas,” said Psmith. “We need not haggle.”

“Are you rotting?”

“I was never more earnest. There is something about that umbrella which appeals to me. Some men collect old china, some first editions. I have only this instant discovered my life’s work. Umbrellas.”

“But it only——”

Walderwick stopped. Though no financier, he perceived that the sentence on which he had embarked was one which a vendor would do well to leave unfinished.

“It’s practically new,” he substituted.

“So much the better. We shall grow old together.”

Psmith drew out a cheque-book and began to write.

“You really mean twenty-one pounds?”

“I do. The market may decline to-morrow, but to-day umbrellas are firm.”

Walderwick took the cheque. He inspected it on both sides. The reverse, though uninformative, appeared to reassure him.

“Well, if you want the thing——”

“I do, indeed.”

Walderwick relinquished his property with something approaching tenderness. He felt that he had never properly appreciated it.

Psmith placed it beside his chair.

“And now,” he said, “was there some other matter you wished to discuss?”

Walderwick hesitated.

“No,” he said.

“Then all is well.”

Walderwick went away to ascertain whether the bank on which the cheque was drawn had a branch in the neighbourhood. Psmith resumed his paper. But he found that the fluctuations of rubber shares had lost their savour.

Presently he rose, took the umbrella, and went out to lunch.

* * * * *

By half-past three London had recovered sufficiently from the morning’s shower to pretend that nothing of the kind had occurred. Piccadilly shone, the Green Park glittered, and sparrows were conducting an argument in a puddle with the vehemence of small men at a public meeting.

Eve, whose appointment was for four o’clock at Lord Emsworth’s hotel, had entered the park to pass the intervening minutes. She found an empty chair and was about to sit down when she observed the occupant of the next one.

He was very tall and very thin. A monocle gleamed in his right eye. Across his knees lay an umbrella.

“Oh!” said Eve.

Psmith rose.

“Good afternoon.”

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“A statement,” said Psmith, “which lends a new interest to what had threatened to be a commonplace day.”

“I took your umbrella back to the club.”

“Did you?”

“And left a note.”

“How thoughtful.”

There was a pause.

“Well,” said Eve, “aren’t you going to say anything?”

“I was wondering whether you would care to sit down. These chairs are conducted on strictly commercial lines, but I believe the charge is within reason.”

Eve sat down. Psmith followed her example.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said.

“For suggesting that you should sit down? It was nothing.”

“For the umbrella.”

Psmith glanced at the object on his knees.

“A beautiful piece of work,” he said. “I bought it to-day.”

Eve looked at him sharply.

“You bought it?”

“This very morning. I had long felt that my equipment was incomplete.”

“But you gave it to me.”

“I fear,” said Psmith courteously, “that there is some little confusion.”

“There isn’t any confusion at all. You came across the road without a hat and put it into my hand.”

“An unusual proceeding.”

“Very.”

“And then?”

“You ran away.”

“The action of a man conscious that he had overstepped the bounds.”

Eve’s eyes began to dance.

“Do you mean to sit there and pretend it wasn’t you?”

“I should hesitate to advance any theory until I had sifted the evidence. London contains a great many people.”

“Not like you.”

“You are very kind.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“Nevertheless, I shall treasure it.”

The chair attendant approached, and Eve, opening her bag, discovered with annoyance that the penny she had intended for this purpose had worked its way beneath the lining. Psmith settled for both chairs with the quiet efficiency of a man concluding an international loan.

“Now you’ve lent me a chair,” she said.

“Merely the temporary use of one. I gather that they are not permitted to leave the park.”

“I shall have to write another note.”

“Let us dispense with formalities.”

Eve looked at the umbrella again.

“I know it’s the same one.”

“Very possibly. Umbrellas circulate. They pass from hand to hand, knitting society together.”

“Well, whoever he was, he saved my hat.”

Psmith regarded the hat with respectful attention.

“Then he did not live in vain.”

A clock struck the quarter. Eve rose hastily.

“I must go. I’ve an appointment.”

“May I escort you?”

“No, thank you. I’m going to be interviewed about a post, and I should like to arrive looking businesslike.”

Psmith considered this.

“You think my presence might impart a suggestion of frivolity?”

“I think it very likely.”

“Then I withdraw. We must sacrifice ourselves to your career.”

Eve held out her hand.

“Good-bye. And thank you—whoever it was.”

Psmith bowed.

“I will see that your message reaches the proper quarter.”

She walked away, and Psmith remained standing beside the chairs until the curve of the path had hidden her. Then he sat down again.

After a few moments he addressed the umbrella.

“This,” he said, “is becoming intricate.”

* * * * *

Lord Emsworth was waiting in a private sitting-room at his hotel with the expression of one who has been told that something disagreeable is going to happen and has forgotten what it is. Baxter had written the words “Miss Halliday. Four o’clock. Library” on a sheet of paper, and placed it conspicuously on the table. His lordship had subsequently covered it with a gardening catalogue.

He brightened when Eve was announced. He liked pretty girls, provided that they did not require him to remember whose daughters they were.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Quite so. Sit down, sit down.”

Eve sat down.

“I hope I’m not late.”

“Late? Oh, no, no. Capital.”

He beamed at her. Eve waited.

“You had a little rain this morning?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“Good for the gardens.”

“Yes.”

“A great deal of good.”

Having disposed of the weather, Lord Emsworth looked at the gardening catalogue. Eve felt that initiative was expected of her.

“I understand you want the books arranged alphabetically?”

“Eh?”

“The books in the library.”

“Oh, the books! Yes, yes, certainly.”

“By authors, I suppose?”

Lord Emsworth considered the suggestion with the air of a man to whom a new and ingenious invention has been submitted.

“An excellent idea.”

“And would you want a separate list of subjects?”

“Whatever you think best. I leave all that to you. Baxter knows.”

He picked up the catalogue, and his face suddenly lost its vagueness.

“Perhaps you can tell me,” he said, “what they mean by this?”

He handed it to her, pointing to a paragraph marked in pencil.

Eve read it conscientiously. It concerned a herbaceous border, and contained a number of Latin words which conveyed nothing to her except a faint recollection of unhappy mornings at school.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand it.”

“Neither do I,” said Lord Emsworth, pleased to find that the difficulty was general. “And I’ve read it three times.”

Eve examined the cover.

“This is a nursery catalogue.”

“Yes, yes. But why six feet? Last year they told me four.”

“I really couldn’t say.”

Lord Emsworth’s face fell.

“I thought you would know.”

“I’m afraid I know very little about gardening.”

“Dear me!”

The disappointment in his voice was so profound that Eve felt her prospects slipping from her.

“But I have done a good deal of cataloguing.”

“Yes, but surely——”

He broke off and looked at her with dawning suspicion.

“Did Baxter send you?”

“No. I wrote about the library, and you arranged to see me here.”

“The library?”

“The library at Blandings Castle.”

For some seconds his lordship subjected her to the troubled scrutiny which he usually reserved for Baxter when that young man informed him that he had promised to dine somewhere. Then he discovered the sheet of paper beneath the catalogue.

“Oh, yes! Miss Halliday. Of course, of course. Books.”

“Yes,” said Eve firmly.

“My dear young lady, I beg your pardon. I’ve been expecting somebody from the nursery all the afternoon. Most annoying. They undertake to send a competent man, and then——”

He stopped, apparently struck by a belated flaw in his reasoning.

“Though, of course, you couldn’t have been the man. No, no. Quite so.”

Eve laughed. Lord Emsworth laughed also, with relief. He had feared for a moment that explanations might be necessary.

“Then you still wish me to come?”

“Certainly, certainly. Delighted.”

“When?”

“Eh?”

“When shall I come?”

“Oh, any time. Baxter will write. A most capable fellow. He arranges everything.”

He shook hands warmly, and Eve left him searching for his pencil, which he had put into the gardening catalogue to mark the paragraph about the border.

* * * * *

Evening had settled over Dover Street when Psmith returned to the Drones. He had walked a considerable distance, but the exercise had not clarified his views on the problem which occupied him. It is difficult to pursue an acquaintance when your information concerning her consists chiefly of the fact that she possesses a hat.

He took the umbrella into the smoking-room. The room was empty. From somewhere below came the clatter of plates and the voice of a member complaining about the soup.

Psmith had scarcely seated himself when the porter entered with an envelope.

“Excuse me, sir. I think this must be for you.”

Psmith opened it and read the brief message.

“The young lady brought it with the umbrella, sir. She didn’t know your name, but from what she said I thought it would be you.”

“Your powers of deduction do you credit.”

“I meant to give it to you before, sir.”

“Time has not impaired its interest.”

“She gave me her name, in case there was any enquiry. Miss Eve Halliday, sir.”

“Miss Eve Halliday?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.”

The porter withdrew, closing the door softly behind him.

Psmith sat alone in the smoking-room, the note in his hand and the umbrella propped against his knee. He looked at the umbrella with grave approval.

“Twenty-one pounds,” he murmured. “And people talk of the high cost of living.”

Lady Russell came to Kellynch with the full intention of being useful, and with a paper in her pocket which had cost her more uneasiness than Sir Walter had ever suffered in contracting any of the debts it was designed to discharge. She had considered, calculated, and reconsidered; had allowed much to his habits, something to Elizabeth’s, and a little too much, perhaps, to her own opinion of what was due to Kellynch Hall. To preserve the respectability of the family, while restoring its independence, was her object; and she had brought herself to believe that both might be accomplished by sacrifices which, though certainly sacrifices, ought not to be thought intolerable.

Mr Shepherd was already there. He had brought papers likewise, but had laid them beside him with an air of having no particular attachment to their contents. Long acquaintance with Sir Walter had taught him that a proposal might sometimes be advanced by appearing very willing to withdraw it; and he was prepared to find his own judgement inferior, if he could but discover a superior judgement which would pay the bills.

Anne, who had been desired by Lady Russell to remain, sat a little apart from the table. Elizabeth was at her father’s side. There was a gravity in the arrangement of the party which Sir Walter did not like. He moved his chair sufficiently to escape the appearance of being examined, and begged Lady Russell to begin.

Her plan was unfolded with all the consideration which friendship and good breeding could supply. There must be a reduction in the number of servants; the stable establishment must be lessened; entertainments must be fewer, and the annual journey to London, for the present, relinquished. A fixed sum, taken first from the income, was to be applied to the debts; the remainder, under careful management, would still support a very proper style of living. She had made enquiries, and she ventured to hope that, in seven years, Sir Walter might find himself free from every embarrassment.

“Seven years!” cried Sir Walter. “My dear Lady Russell, you cannot seriously recommend that I should live in this manner for seven years. I should be a very different person at the end of seven years.”

Lady Russell hoped he would be a much happier one.

“But consider the servants. You propose dismissing people who have been accustomed to my house; people who know what a house ought to be. And the carriage-horses! I do not see how Elizabeth is to visit any body. We cannot be always considering whether the horses have been out.”

There would still be a pair, Lady Russell reminded him.

“A pair! Yes; and if one were ill, we should be prisoners. I am obliged to you for the trouble you have taken, but it is quite impossible. I could not think of it. We will put that paper aside.”

The paper was put aside; not quite so composedly by its owner as she could have wished. She had expected objections, but had hoped for discussion; and there is a degree of disappointment in discovering that one has been anxious to no purpose, which even the most disinterested friendship cannot immediately overcome.

Mr Shepherd now drew his chair nearer.

“If I might be permitted, Sir Walter, to suggest an arrangement of a somewhat different nature. Her ladyship’s calculations are undoubtedly excellent; nobody can question the principle. But there are means of easing the immediate pressure, which might render so considerable a change in the household unnecessary.”

His proposal was to preserve the principal establishment, but to shut up a portion of the house, discontinue the use of the hot-houses, sell two horses not required for the carriage, and place the household expenditure under a stated quarterly allowance. The London visit might be shortened instead of abandoned. He believed that the principal tradespeople, on receiving a part of what was owing, would consent to payment of the remainder by regular instalments; and he had prepared an estimate of what could annually be spared.

Sir Walter heard him to the end with increasing coldness.

“Shut up the rooms! What rooms do you mean?”

Mr Shepherd specified them.

“The very rooms which any body staying here must occupy! You would have me tell my friends that I could not receive them. And the hot-houses are remarkably well managed. Every body has noticed them. I cannot understand the advantage of destroying what is in good order.”

The expense of maintaining them was explained.

“Yes, yes; but there must be expense. You cannot have a place like Kellynch for nothing. As to putting my household upon an allowance, I should be ashamed to speak of such a thing to my own servants. They would suppose that I was ruined. No, Shepherd; your plan will not do at all. I reject it entirely.”

Mr Shepherd bowed, and gathered up his estimate. Sir Walter, having disposed of both schemes, looked less oppressed. There had been something disagreeable before him, and it was gone. He was almost ready to talk of other matters.

Anne had been following the calculations with an attention which could receive no relief from their dismissal. After a short silence, she said—

“Would it not be better to make the change greater at once, if it could then be for a shorter time?”

Her father turned towards her with the air of a man to whom an observation has been addressed by mistake; but Lady Russell encouraged her to proceed.

“If we kept only those servants who are necessary for the house as we use it every day, and gave up the carriage, and had no company to stay with us, there might be a much larger sum paid. We could live in fewer rooms without injuring the others. The fires, and lighting, and all the little expenses of receiving people, must together be considerable. And if we bought nothing which we could do without, and went neither to London nor any where else for pleasure, perhaps we should not have so many years to look forward to.”

“My dear Anne,” said Lady Russell, “you are proposing a very severe trial.”

“I know it would be felt; but ought not the people who have trusted us to be considered before our convenience? I should be very glad to give up every thing I can. My own expenses are small; but I could undertake some things in the house which are now paid for, and we might keep an exact account, every week, of what was spent.”

There was nothing in this speech to recommend it to Sir Walter. He had heard the carriage condemned, hospitality abolished, and himself required to examine accounts, without discovering a single circumstance of consolation; and he was preparing to express his astonishment, when Elizabeth said—

“I think Anne is right.”

Lady Russell looked at her; Mr Shepherd ceased arranging his papers; and Anne herself could scarcely believe that she had heard correctly.

“I think,” Elizabeth continued, colouring a little under so much attention, “that if any thing is to be done, it had better be done thoroughly. Seven years would be dreadful. One could submit to a great deal for a time, if one knew that there was to be an end of it.”

“Elizabeth! You cannot mean that you would give up the carriage?”

“Yes, for the present. And I could do very well without going to London next spring. I would rather remain at home than go there to be considering the price of every thing, and hearing afterwards that we ought not to have gone.”

Sir Walter gazed at her with a disappointment very different from any which Anne could have occasioned. That Elizabeth should agree with Anne was an inversion of the natural order of their family; that she should agree with her in giving up a carriage, was almost beyond belief.

Elizabeth, however, persisted. She would have no dinners; she would discharge her own maid, if necessary; she was sure that several of the servants might be spared. A reduced establishment, acknowledged and complete, had suddenly appeared to her less humiliating than a succession of little refusals. She could command a retreat with some dignity; she could not endure to be checked at every step. There was, besides, in being the person to determine how the house should be altered, something which restored her to herself. She had suffered much from having nothing to propose.

Anne was grateful for the assistance, without requiring that every feeling which produced it should resemble her own. She ventured to ask Mr Shepherd what sum might be saved by such an arrangement.

He could not immediately say. The saving would undoubtedly be very considerable. If Miss Elliot were disposed to enter into particulars—

“Miss Elliot is not called upon to enter into any such particulars,” said Sir Walter. “I must beg that there may be an end of this. Anne knows nothing of the matter; and Elizabeth has been frightened. I will not have my daughters living like the daughters of a country curate. There are things which no man of family can be expected to do.”

Lady Russell spoke of the true dignity of independence, and of the respect which must attend an honourable exertion to obtain it. She spoke warmly, for Elizabeth’s unexpected support had raised her hopes; but Sir Walter had never found it difficult to distinguish between the dignity which required something of him, and that which required something of other people. He was entirely for the latter.

Mr Shepherd allowed a pause, and then observed, in a tone of cautious unconcern, that there was one other course which persons of the first consequence had occasionally found advantageous.

“If the expense of residing here should prove too great under any arrangement agreeable to yourself, Sir Walter, a temporary absence might effect every thing that is wanted. A house of this description, furnished as it is, with the grounds in such order, would command a very handsome return. There might be no difficulty in finding a tenant—”

“A what?”

“A family of fortune and perfect respectability, who would—”

“Do not repeat that word in my presence, Shepherd. I desire that I may never hear it again. Kellynch Hall is not to be spoken of in that manner.”

Mr Shepherd was exceedingly sorry. He had only conceived it his duty to mention every possible resource.

“There can be no duty in mentioning what is offensive. People in my rooms, using my furniture, giving directions to my servants! I wonder that you should have thought me capable of listening to it.”

He rose as he spoke, and walked to the window. The conference was at an end; for though nobody had been convinced, every body had been silenced.

Lady Russell remained long enough to recover some composure, and to tell Anne, in a low voice, that she must not be discouraged. Sir Walter would reflect. Anne wished to believe it; but reflection had so seldom produced any visible alteration in her father’s wishes, that she could only hope the necessity might become more persuasive than his friends. Mr Shepherd took away his papers, promising to look again into the accounts; a promise which gave general satisfaction, because it required nothing of any body present.

Before Lady Russell’s carriage was announced, a letter was brought to Anne. It had come from Uppercross, and was sufficiently unlike the communications which had lately occupied the family to obtain her father’s ready permission for its being opened.

Mary wrote in great discomfort.

“My dear Anne,—I have been very unwell all the morning, and nobody seems to think any thing of it. Charles says he cannot see that I am worse than usual; but he went out directly after breakfast, which is exactly what always happens when I am least fit to be left. The children make such a noise that I do not know what to do, and yet, if I speak, I am told they are only playing. I am sure you would say I looked extremely ill. I wish you would come to me to-morrow, as early as you can. There can be nothing to keep you at Kellynch, and I have nobody here who understands how to make me comfortable. I have scarcely eaten any thing, and cannot bear the thought of dinner. Pray do not disappoint me.—Yours affectionately, Mary Musgrove.”

Anne was concerned, though not alarmed. Mary’s being able to describe her sufferings at length was no proof that she suffered little; but there was comfort in finding that the disorder had not yet deprived her of an interest in the faults of her companions.

“Mary wants you, of course,” said Elizabeth, when the letter had been explained. “She always does, if Charles happens to go out.”

Lady Russell thought a visit might be useful. Anne had been looking tired; a little change, and the occupation of attending to her sister, might do her good. Of the occupation Anne was certain; of its being a change she was less so. Yet she was willing to go. There were children at Uppercross whose pleasure in seeing her would be neither doubtful nor concealed.

Sir Walter only desired that Mary might be told not to encourage the habit of fancying herself ill. It injured the looks exceedingly. He had observed that people who were always complaining soon justified their complaints by their appearance.

Nothing more was settled that afternoon. Elizabeth, when alone with Anne for a few minutes, did not retract her opinion; but she spoke chiefly of the inconvenience of keeping half an establishment, and of the impossibility of having things done properly unless she directed them herself. Anne listened with a kindness which found enough to value in the resolution, without examining too closely the satisfaction attached to it.

At dinner the subject of money was avoided. Sir Walter had recovered his usual manner, and Elizabeth did not choose to renew a discussion in which she had been so little attended to. The ease with which the ordinary course of the house returned might have persuaded a stranger that its continuance had never been questioned.

Anne went early to her own room. She had resolved to be at Uppercross the next morning, and there were a few things to put together before she could sit down with Mary’s letter again. Its complaints were not more reasonable on a second reading; but the request remained a request for her, and she was glad that it was in her power to answer it.

The evening light was failing while she considered what she might still do for those she was leaving. She could lessen her own wants; she could be useful wherever she was admitted to be useful; but she could not make her father just by being herself forbearing, nor pay his creditors by feeling for them. The plans had all been heard, and nothing had been allowed. To-morrow she should go to Mary; beyond that little certainty, there was only the same uneasy prospect, with every debt remaining, and no sacrifice begun.

The First National Bank had pillars in front, brass rails inside, and a clock that was three minutes slower than mine. I waited at a railing while a young man counted money as if he expected some of it to bite him.

I told him what I wanted. He sent me to a glass enclosure where a gray-haired man with a narrow yellow face sat signing papers. A small plate on his desk named him Albert Voss, assistant cashier.

I gave Voss my card and the number of Donald Willsson’s last check.

“Five thousand dollars,” I said. “Drawn yesterday afternoon. I’d like to know who got it.”

His eyes moved from my card to my face without taking any interest in either.

“Are you acting for the estate?”

“I’m acting for the man who drew it. He employed us before he died.”

“That scarcely authorizes us to disclose his banking affairs.”

“No. But it gives you somebody to disclose them to.”

He laid my card on his blotter, squared it with the blotter’s edge, and said:

“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Willsson came here yesterday afternoon a little before three. He’d just written this check. Maybe he cashed it. Maybe he had it certified. If you tell me which, I can quit bothering you. Otherwise I’ll have to get somebody with a badge to ask.”

Voss put a finger against the side of his nose.

“The police have already made inquiries concerning his account.”

“Did they ask about this check?”

“They asked whether there had been any unusual withdrawals.”

“And you said?”

“I said there had not.”

“Five thousand would be unusual?”

“For Mr. Donald Willsson, yes.”

“Then he didn’t cash it?”

The assistant cashier looked at the number I had written on a slip of paper.

“Wait here, please.”

He took the slip away. Through the glass I watched him talk to two men, turn pages in a big book, and talk to a third man. He came back with a little more life in his face.

“That check has never been presented,” he said. “Nor has it been certified.”

“Sure about the certification?”

“Quite sure. I examined the record myself.”

“Did you see Willsson yesterday?”

“Yes. He came in to ask about a remittance from abroad.”

“Get it?”

“It had not arrived.”

“Was he carrying a check?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Did he see anybody else here?”

“He spoke to one of the tellers. I have just asked the teller about it. It was a question about French exchange.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else so far as we know.”

I asked whether five thousand dollars would have been paid if the check had come in yesterday. Voss didn’t like that question. I let him look at my card again and reminded him that he had already told the police about the account.

“The balance was sufficient,” he said finally.

“Is it still?”

“Yes. But we have been notified of Mr. Willsson’s death.”

I thanked him. He gave me back my card. He had handled it enough to earn it, but apparently didn’t want it.

Outside I stood between two of the pillars and looked up and down the street. Five thousand dollars had gone out of a check book without getting into a bank. That was something. It would have been more if I had known whose pocket it had got into.

I ate lunch at a place where the roast beef was good enough to make up for the coffee, and went back to the Great Western.

The clerk gave me my key and said:

“A lady is waiting for you upstairs.”

“Where upstairs?”

“In the corridor by your room. She didn’t care to wait in the lobby.”

“How long?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Young Mrs. Willsson was standing at the corridor window. She wore black. Her shoes were black too. She turned when I came out of the elevator and came toward me with one hand stretched out.

“I had to see you,” she said.

I shook the hand, opened my door, and let her go in ahead of me.

She took the chair by the window. I put my hat on the bed and sat down facing her.

“Who told you where I was?”

“The agency in San Francisco. I telephoned.”

“That was a long way around.”

“I did not know another way.”

Her face was pale, but not as white as it had been the night before. She had put some red on her mouth. Her hands, lying together in her lap, wouldn’t stay still.

“You saw my husband’s father this morning,” she said.

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Some things he didn’t like.”

“About me?”

“Some.”

She looked at my shoes, at the washstand, and then at me.

“You told him I went out last night?”

“Yes.”

“And that there was blood on my slipper?”

“I told him there was something that looked like it.”

“It was blood.”

I waited.

“I went where Donald was killed. I saw him there.”

“Alive?”

“No.”

“Who called you up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Man or woman?”

“A man. He asked if I was Mrs. Willsson. Then he said that if I wished to know what my husband did with his evenings I should come to Hurricane Street.”

“What address?”

“He said the eleven-hundred block. I asked who was speaking, but he had gone.”

“You believed him?”

“I went.”

“That’s not quite the same thing. What time did you get there?”

“I cannot tell you exactly. I did not go directly. I took a wrong turning. I have driven very little in that part of town.”

“And when you got there?”

“There was a man lying on the pavement.”

“Where did you leave your car?”

“At the corner.”

“Which corner?”

“I don’t know the name of the other street.”

“Then what?”

“I ran to him. Another man was there. We turned Donald over. I think I touched his face. I don’t remember everything.”

“Who was the other man?”

She pressed her lips together until some of the red went.

“Who was he?” I asked again.

“Max Thaler.”

“What was he doing?”

“I have told you. He helped me turn Donald over.”

“He say anything?”

“He said Donald was dead.”

“And you both went away before the neighbors came out?”

“I heard somebody opening a window. Mr. Thaler told me to go home.”

“So you went.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She looked at me steadily for the first time.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Of being found there?”

“Of everything. Donald was dead. I could do nothing for him. I had come because a stranger had told me to spy upon him. I was ashamed and frightened. Must I have behaved sensibly?”

“No. People usually don’t. Did Thaler go back to the car with you?”

“No.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“No.”

“What did he want at your house this morning?”

“To tell me I should say nothing about having been there.”

“Why?”

“He said the police would use it against me.”

“They will like your keeping quiet even better. What made you change your mind?”

“I had time to think.”

“Did you tell Thaler you were coming here?”

“No.”

“Know him well?”

“I have met him.”

“Where?”

“At dinner. In other people’s houses.”

“Your husband’s friends?”

“People we knew.”

I let that go and asked:

“What did you know about a five-thousand-dollar check your husband wrote yesterday?”

Her hands stopped moving.

“Nothing.”

“Think it over. Five thousand dollars.”

“I know nothing about it.”

“He was to meet somebody at ten last night. A woman.”

“Who?”

“I’m asking you.”

She got up and walked to the window. There wasn’t much to see from it except the hotel’s fire escape and the rear of another building. She looked at them for a while.

“Did he tell you that?” she asked without turning.

“No.”

“Then perhaps it isn’t true.”

“Perhaps. Did he have five thousand dollars’ worth of trouble with a woman?”

She turned around quickly.

“Why should you ask me that?”

“You’re his wife.”

“That would be an excellent reason for my not knowing.”

It was a sensible answer. I gave her another question.

“Were his pockets turned out when you found him?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Anything on the pavement? Papers?”

“I saw nothing.”

“Did Thaler take anything from him?”

“I did not see him take anything.”

“Was he bending over your husband when you first saw him?”

“Yes.”

“How long before you got there?”

“How could I know?”

She came away from the window and picked up her bag.

“I have told you what happened. I shall tell the police. Is there anything else?”

“Don’t let anybody improve the story for you before you get there.”

Her eyes narrowed a little.

“You do not believe me.”

“I believe you’ve told me some of it.”

She stood looking down at me. Then she said, very quietly:

“You are an unpleasant man.”

I got up to open the door for her.

“That’s what your father-in-law thinks. You two ought to get along better.”

She went out without answering.

I stayed upstairs for half an hour, putting what she had told me beside what I already had. The pieces fitted if you didn’t mind leaving plenty of space between them.

Then I went down to the desk and asked for police headquarters on the phone.

After three switches I got a man who admitted knowing something about Willsson’s murder. I gave him my name and business and asked about the dead man’s papers.

“What about them?”

“Was there a check for five thousand dollars?”

“Who says there was?”

“Nobody. Was there?”

“Not among the stuff brought in.”

“Any loose papers found in the street?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Who’s got his effects?”

“The chief’s office. You want to see them, you better see him.”

I said I would and hung up.

The clerk beckoned me over.

“A boy brought this while you were telephoning.”

He handed me a small envelope with the hotel’s name printed in one corner. My name had been written across it in pencil. Inside was a sheet of hotel paper carrying three pencilled lines:

Mrs. Willsson didn’t see the shooting. Don’t let them make her think she did. I haven’t got your five thousand.

Max Thaler.

“Where’s the boy?”

“Gone.”

“What sort?”

“About fifteen. Cap and sweater. He didn’t wait for an answer.”

“Did he ask whether I’d had a visitor?”

The clerk thought before answering.

“He asked if the lady had left.”

“And you told him?”

“Yes.”

I put the note in my pocket.

It was possible Thaler had heard about the check from the widow. It was also possible she hadn’t had time to tell him. The bank was another place he could have heard about it. So was the Herald. There were enough possibilities to keep a man from enjoying any one of them.

I went out and walked to Hurricane Street.

The eleven-hundred block was a shabby row of houses with small yards and wooden steps. Two boys were examining the bullet marks in a wall. Across the street the alley was narrow enough to let a man touch both sides if his arms were long. I went through it. It opened into another street behind the houses.

There was no reason for the murderer to have stayed to look at his work. There was no reason, either, why a man seen looking at it had to be the murderer.

I stood at the corner where Mrs. Willsson might have left her car. From there I could see the place where her husband had fallen. I could also see three front doors near enough to it for a ten o’clock appointment. All three were closed.

I walked back to the hotel without knocking on any of them. Knocking could wait until I had something better to ask than whether somebody had mislaid five thousand dollars.

At dinner I read the evening paper. It knew no more than the morning one, but used more words saying it. After dinner I went upstairs and wrote a wire to the Old Man:

DONALD WILLSSON MURDERED TEN FORTY LAST NIGHT BEFORE KEEPING APPOINTMENT WITH ME STOP EMPLOYER HAD NOT DISCLOSED NATURE OF WORK STOP SIX SHOTS FIRED FROM ALLEY HURRICANE STREET FOUR TAKING EFFECT STOP WIDOW ADMITS PRESENT AFTER SHOOTING WITH MAX THALER LOCAL GAMBLER BUT DENIES WITNESSING IT STOP ANONYMOUS TELEPHONE MESSAGE BROUGHT HER THERE STOP WILLSSON DREW FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON PAYEE UNKNOWN STOP ALBERT VOSS ASSISTANT CASHIER FIRST NATIONAL STATES CHECK NEVER PRESENTED OR CERTIFIED STOP NOT AMONG EFFECTS ACCORDING POLICE STOP THALER UNSOLICITED WRITES HE HAS NOT GOT MONEY STOP POLITICAL MOTIVE POSSIBLE BUT UNESTABLISHED STOP CONTINUING INVESTIGATION PENDING INSTRUCTIONS.

I read it over, put our San Francisco address above it, and rang for a boy.

While I waited I looked at Thaler’s note again. He hadn’t said he hadn’t got the check. He had said he hadn’t got my five thousand. It could have been a distinction. It could have been the way he talked. I had heard him say nothing yet.

The boy came. I gave him the wire and enough money to send it, telling him to bring back the receipt.

I sat by the window until he returned. The fire escape had gone black. A light came on in the building opposite, showing a square of dirty ceiling, and presently went out again.

The boy brought my change and the telegraph receipt. I shut the door after him and put the receipt beside Thaler’s note on the table.

The wire was sent. Somewhere there was a check that had never reached the bank. I was alone in my room and had no better address for it.

We had not reached our gate when a white light ran over the road before us, and the shadows of the trees sprang out black and distinct upon the opposite hedge. My wife caught my arm. Looking up, I saw a streak of greenish fire descending towards the low ground on the Chertsey side of Ottershaw. It moved with an extraordinary deliberation for a falling star, leaving behind it a shining track that bent and broke into little luminous fragments. For an instant the windows of a house beyond the road glittered as though someone had carried a lamp from room to room; then the night closed again.

We stood looking over the hedge. I had the impression that the thing had fallen quite close to us, behind a clump of trees whose upper branches were still faintly visible against the sky.

“Was that lightning?” my wife asked.

I told her it was a meteor, and while I was speaking there came a dull concussion, followed by a noise like a heavy waggon passing over hollow ground. It seemed to travel beneath our feet. Somewhere a dog began barking, and presently another answered it.

“It has fallen,” said I.

But already the light had become something difficult to believe in. The road was as dark as before, the stars as numerous and remote. A man came to the doorway of the house whose windows had shone, looked out for a moment, and went indoors again. We waited, expecting some further sound. None came, and after a little discussion as to the direction of the fall, we went into our house.

I remember that I looked from our bedroom window before drawing the blind, and saw nothing unusual except a pale patch close to the ground, which I took to be mist. I was sufficiently interested to resolve upon finding Ogilvy in the morning. Then I put the matter out of my mind and slept.

It was my wife who recalled it to me at breakfast. A boy bringing some things from the village had said that a thunderbolt had fallen into an old gravel working beside the lane towards Chertsey, and that the water there was boiling. His information had been obtained from a carter, who had seen the place on his way to fetch a load of sand.

“There is your falling star,” she said. “We ought to go and see it.”

I had some work I wished to finish, and at first proposed going after luncheon. But the boy’s account interested me more as I considered it. Meteorites of any considerable size were rare enough, and the possibility that the one we had seen was lying within an easy walk of our house soon overcame my industry. We started a little after eight, my wife taking a sunshade, for the morning was already hot.

The place was one of those neglected excavations common in that neighbourhood, with a fringe of birch and willow and a shallow pool occupying the lower portion. I had passed it many times without giving it more than a glance. Rushes grew along one side, and towards the lane there was a shelving bank down which carts had formerly been driven. The pool had no name that I knew of. Children sometimes fished there, though I never heard that they caught anything.

Before we reached the gap in the hedge we saw a thin column of vapour rising above the bushes. It drifted lazily towards the road, and through it came a smell of wet earth and something sharper, resembling the smell about a smithy. Two bicycles leaned against the hedge. A little farther on a man stood upon the bank with his hands in his pockets, looking down.

The whole appearance of the hollow had changed. Across its farther edge a broad furrow had been torn through the turf, and a willow lay overturned, its roots holding up a great lump of yellow earth. Beyond it the ground was scored and scattered with stones. The water, usually dark and still under its green border, was muddy, and a succession of little waves broke against the rushes.

In the middle of it lay the object.

At first I could distinguish only a black convexity, half hidden by the steam. Then a movement of the air cleared it, and I saw a great elongated body lying obliquely across the pool, with perhaps half its bulk below the surface. Its nearer extremity rested in the mud towards our side. The other was lost beneath the water, from which bubbles rose continually with a soft, irregular sound. Along the exposed portion there were patches of a dull reddish colour, and flakes of black matter that cracked and fell away as we watched. I judged its visible length at twenty feet or more, though the steam and the absence of any familiar object beside it made an estimate difficult.

Ogilvy was down at the water’s edge.

He had taken off his coat and laid it upon a bush, and his boots were yellow with mud. Beside him stood a labourer holding a spade. Ogilvy turned at the sound of our approach and waved us down, but when my wife began to descend he warned her of the loose earth.

“Keep to the grass there. This bank has been shaken to pieces.”

He was flushed and very cheerful. He had heard the fall, he told us, and had been searching for it since six. The carter had directed him at last.

“An extraordinary piece of good fortune,” he said. “Another hundred yards and it might have buried itself where we should have had a week’s digging.”

“What do you make of it?” I asked.

“A meteorite, of course.”

He said this with a promptness that surprised me, for at a closer view the regularity of the thing had become more remarkable. Its upper outline was almost straight, and the visible end, though obscured with adhering earth, had a rounded symmetry unlike any mass of natural rock I had ever seen.

“An iron meteorite?” I said.

“Almost certainly. Look at the crust.”

My wife remained a little above us, holding her skirt clear of the wet grass. She asked whether the water had been thrown out upon the bank.

“Most of it, I should think,” said Ogilvy. “There must have been a fine fountain here last night. You can see the mud on those leaves.”

And indeed the bushes on the nearer side were plastered with it to a height considerably above my head.

I went a few paces along the margin, trying to obtain a better view of the farther end. The heat was sensible upon my face. Wherever the water touched the black surface there was a faint hissing, and now and then a larger bubble broke with a sound like a man drawing his foot out of mire.

“It is very regularly shaped,” I said.

Ogilvy stooped and picked up a fragment of the dark scale from the mud. He dropped it immediately and sucked his finger.

“Still hot,” he remarked.

“Does it not strike you as regularly shaped?”

He looked at it again.

“The fracture of meteoric bodies is a subject upon which we know very little. You must remember the conditions under which they reach us.”

“But that curve,” I persisted. “And the length of it. It looks almost as though it had been made.”

He turned upon me with a little laugh.

“Made?”

I felt something of the absurdity of the suggestion as soon as I had uttered it. Yet the impression remained.

“We have been watching some curious things lately,” I said.

“On Mars? My dear fellow!”

He glanced towards my wife, as though asking her to share his amusement.

“You have got those eruptions into your head. This is an ordinary meteorite—ordinary in its nature, I mean. Its size is another matter. There is no reason whatever for connecting the two things.”

“There is the coincidence.”

“There is always a coincidence if you look for one. A stone falls while we are observing Mars, and therefore it comes from Mars! You might as well connect it with the first train that passed after you saw the light.”

His certainty irritated me, the more because I had no argument that seemed worth stating. I pointed again to the even outline.

“That is a reason for examining it,” he said, “not for inventing an origin for it. Wait until it is cool.”

My wife asked how long that would take. He spread his hands.

“A body of that size? We shall see. The outside may cool quickly enough, but there must be an immense store of heat within.”

The labourer, who had listened to this discussion without changing his expression, now observed that it would take a powerful lot of horses to get it out. This brought us back to more immediate considerations. Ogilvy wanted some means of keeping people from disturbing the bank, and he was anxious to send a message concerning his discovery. Already a woman and three children had joined the man above us, and a youth with a basket on his arm was making his way through the hedge.

For some time we stayed there talking and looking at the thing. I became less disposed to dispute Ogilvy’s explanation. In the full morning light, with the labourer estimating its weight and my wife examining the mud upon her shoes, my suggestion had an extravagance that I could not defend. Yet whenever the steam parted and showed that long, smooth upper surface, my dissatisfaction returned.

By ten o’clock there were perhaps thirty people about the hollow. Most remained upon the bank, but a few came down and stood beside us. Their remarks had a curious sameness. They asked where it had come from, how deep it was in the mud, and whether anybody had heard it fall. Each fresh arrival seemed to consider that this last question had been overlooked. A man who declared that he had been awake all night and had heard nothing was listened to with a respect quite disproportionate to the value of his evidence.

One of the newcomers was a young fellow in shirt-sleeves, with a red neckerchief and very white teeth, who made himself conspicuous by his readiness to explain everything. He said that he had worked with iron, and that a piece as big as this could not remain hot in water for more than an hour. Ogilvy contradicted him without looking round.

“It is the mud steaming,” the young man said.

To demonstrate this he went along the shelving edge towards the nearer extremity. There the displacement of earth had made a narrow tongue of gravel reaching almost to the object, and by stepping upon a clod he could lean across the intervening water.

Ogilvy saw his intention too late.

“Don’t touch it!” he cried.

The fellow had already laid his open hand upon a patch from which the crust had fallen. I heard a sharp cry, and saw him wrench himself backwards with such violence that he slipped into the shallow water. He scrambled out at once, holding his hand against his breast. His face had become grey about the mouth.

For a moment nobody moved. Then my wife closed her sunshade and hurried down to him.

“Let me see,” she said.

He would not at first, but stood rocking a little, with his elbow pressed against his side. When at last he extended his hand, I saw that the palm was badly burned. He stared at it with a stupid astonishment, as though it belonged to someone else.

Ogilvy sent the labourer to fetch clean water from a cottage near the lane. My wife wetted her handkerchief when it came, and helped the young man hold it about his hand. His assurance had quite deserted him. He kept saying that he had scarcely touched the thing, and asking whether he ought to go to a doctor. Presently the labourer took him away.

That small accident altered the disposition of the spectators more effectually than all Ogilvy’s warnings. They withdrew up the slope, and for a while even their voices were lower. Yet those who arrived afterwards, and had not seen the burned hand, soon pressed forward again. The account passed from mouth to mouth, acquiring additions. I heard a woman say that the man’s sleeve had caught fire, though there had been no fire at all.

Towards eleven the steam diminished considerably. The water still stirred about the buried end, but the exposed surface could now be seen almost continuously. It seemed darker than before, with a faint bluish lustre in places. Nothing about it moved except the loosening scales. There it lay, enormous, silent, and inaccessible, while our little companies shifted and argued upon the bank.

Ogilvy had sent his message and was making notes upon the back of an envelope. He borrowed my watch to compare the time with an observation of the bubbling water. His absorption had the effect of restoring confidence to everyone near him. People began to speak of the object as a curiosity that would presently be removed, and someone wondered what admission would be charged to see it.

The sun was now nearly overhead, and there was little shade upon our side of the hollow. My wife had grown tired. More than once she reminded me of our luncheon, and I answered without attending very closely to what she said. I was watching a patch of bare surface upon which the light fell with a peculiarly even reflection.

At last I noticed her fatigue and urged her to go home.

“You will come too?”

“In a little while. I want to stay until Ogilvy has finished.”

She looked down at the pool, and then at the people continually appearing through the gap in the hedge.

“There will be nothing left for luncheon if you forget it altogether,” she said.

I walked with her to the lane and persuaded her that there was no reason for both of us to remain in the heat. She made me promise not to be very long, took her sunshade from my hand, and set off towards home.

I watched her until the bend concealed her. From the direction of Chertsey came the sound of a clock striking twelve. A cart had stopped beside the hedge, and its occupants were climbing down; farther along the lane I could see several people approaching on foot. I went back through the gap and took my place again above the water.

“What have you been doing?”

“Oh, everything. Going about.”

The taxi went fast down the empty street. When we crossed a lighted corner I could see her face, and then it was dark again. She had her hands together in her lap.

“Have you been away?”

“No. That’s the trouble. Take me to the Dôme, will you?”

“I thought you wanted to drive.”

“I did. I’ve done it now.”

I tapped on the glass and the driver leaned his head back. I told him the Dôme. He stopped the car to turn and another taxi coming behind us blew its horn. Our driver shouted something and swung round. Brett sat forward while he turned and then settled back into the corner.

“That’s better,” she said.

“What is?”

“Going somewhere.”

“You were going somewhere before.”

“Yes. But I didn’t ask to.”

We came into the boulevard and passed under the lights. There were people outside the cafés and waiters carrying chairs in from the farther edges of the terraces. Brett looked out of the window. I looked at her face reflected in the glass. It was easier than looking at her.

“Is the Dôme all right for you?” she asked.

“It’s a café.”

“I mean you don’t mind it.”

“I like to see the chairs.”

“They’ve very good chairs.”

“They ought to be. They get enough practice.”

“Then we shall have a splendid time.”

I wanted to be alone with her.

The taxi stopped outside the Dôme. I paid the driver and we found a table near the end of the terrace. Brett took off her hat and put it on the empty chair beside her. There was a mark across her forehead where the hat had pressed. She rubbed it with her fingers.

“What are you having?”

“Something perfectly harmless.”

“Coffee?”

“Don’t be beastly. A whisky and soda.”

I ordered two. At the next table three men were looking at a drawing. One held it flat on the marble with both hands and the other two leaned over it. They looked at it for a long time. Then the man took his hands away and the paper rolled up.

“I met a chap last week,” Brett said. “Harry Bellingham. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“He’s got pots of money.”

“What does he do?”

“I don’t know. Has it, I think.”

“That’s good work.”

“He asked me to Cannes. He’s taken a villa there. There’s a boat, too. He explained the boat very carefully.”

“Are you going?”

“I haven’t been asked carefully enough.”

The waiter brought the drinks and opened the soda. Brett watched him pour it.

“That will do. Merci.”

“Does he live here?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Your rich man.”

“Oh, Harry. At the Ritz just now. He had a dreadful little dog with him. It sat on a chair all through lunch.”

“Perhaps it owns the villa.”

“Don’t. It very likely does.”

She drank and looked across the boulevard. A bus went past with only two people on top. One of them stood up before it had reached the corner and went down the stairs.

“He was quite nice,” Brett said. “I don’t know why I make him sound awful.”

“You haven’t.”

“I have to myself.”

“Did you like him?”

“I liked the lunch. Isn’t that rotten?”

“No.”

“You always say no to things like that.”

“There isn’t much else to say.”

“There’s a great deal. Only you won’t.”

She turned the glass on its saucer. The bottom of the glass made a little wet ring and she turned it round inside the ring without lifting it. The men at the next table had finished with the drawing. One put it under his arm and they called for the waiter. They all wanted to pay and were angry with the man who paid.

“Would you like to go somewhere else?” I asked.

“We’ve only just come.”

“We can stay.”

“You’re very accommodating.”

“I’m a good sort.”

“Yes,” Brett said. “You are.”

We sat for a while. It was pleasant on the terrace if you did not expect anything else. The drink was good and there was a little wind moving along the boulevard. Across the street a woman was trying to get a dog to come out from under a table. She stooped and called to it and then stood up and spoke to the man with her. The man went down on one knee. The dog came out on the other side.

Suddenly I remembered the envelope.

“What is it?” Brett asked.

“I left fifty francs at the Bal.”

“You told me.”

“I might go and get it.”

“Do you need it?”

“No.”

“Then why get it?”

“Because it’s mine.”

“That’s a reason, of course.”

“The woman will be closing up.”

“Do you want me to come?”

“You can if you like.”

“I’d rather come than sit here.”

We finished the drinks and I paid. Brett put on her hat, watching herself in the dark window behind our table. She pulled it down and then pushed it back.

“That’s no good,” she said.

“It looks all right.”

“You haven’t looked.”

“I’m looking now.”

We walked along the boulevard and turned up toward the Pantheon. Brett walked well when she had started. The streets were quieter away from the cafés. We passed a shop where some men were working behind a half-lowered iron shutter. There was flour on the pavement and the light showed the white legs of their trousers. Farther up, water ran beside the curb with a piece of orange peel turning against a grating.

“You’ve brought me on quite a walking tour,” Brett said.

“You could have stayed.”

“Don’t be so literal, darling.”

At the top of the hill she stopped and looked back. You could see the lights down the street between the houses.

“It’s rather good up here.”

“Yes.”

“I never see any of it.”

“You’re seeing it now.”

“Yes. So I am.”

There was still music at the Bal. We could hear the bells before we came to the door. The policeman had gone and the proprietor’s daughter was sitting on a bench with her shoes off. She put her feet under the bench when she saw us. The room smelled of beer and hot clothes. There were only a few people left.

Georgette sat at a table near the bar eating bread and cheese. Her hat was on and there was a glass of beer in front of her. She looked up when we came in.

“Ah,” she said. “The fiancé.”

“Good evening.”

“It’s morning.”

“How was the dancing?”

“I’ve danced.”

Brett stood beside me. Georgette looked at her and then at me.

“You’ve been somewhere better?”

“We’ve been to the Dôme.”

“That’s not better.”

“No,” Brett said in French. “It wasn’t.”

Georgette moved the plate toward her.

“Will you have some?”

“Thanks awfully. No.”

The patronne came from behind the bar. I asked her for the envelope. She opened a drawer beneath the till and brought it out. It was sealed as I had left it.

“Mademoiselle is still here,” she said.

“I see.”

“She has not asked for you.”

Georgette broke off a piece of bread.

“Why would I ask? I saw him go.”

I took the envelope from the patronne and put it in my pocket. It had become rather foolish coming back for it. The proprietor played a few notes on the accordion and stopped. He unfastened the bells from his ankle and laid them on the stool.

“Have a drink,” I said to Georgette.

“I have one.”

“Another?”

“I don’t want another. I want to finish this one.”

We stood there while she ate. Brett took off one glove and put it on again, fitting each finger separately. The patronne went back to the till.

“I left this for you,” I said, and took out the envelope.

“What’s in it?”

“Fifty francs.”

“Why did you put it in an envelope?”

“So you wouldn’t see it.”

She looked at me and then laughed. It was the first time she had laughed without remembering her teeth. I put the envelope beside her plate.

“You’re very strange,” she said.

“Yes.”

She opened it with the handle of her knife, looked at the note, and put it in her bag. She folded the empty envelope and pushed it under the plate.

“Now you can go,” she said. “You’ve done your business.”

“Good night, Georgette.”

“Good night, Jacob.”

Outside, Brett took my arm. We went down the hill. Behind us the daughter pulled the door shut and the music had stopped.

“Well,” Brett said.

“Well.”

“That was a fine investment.”

“I got the envelope back.”

“For a moment.”

“Yes.”

She began to laugh. We walked along laughing and then she stopped.

“She was quite decent.”

“Yes. She was.”

“Better than we were.”

“She had something to eat.”

“Could we get something?”

“Are you hungry?”

“I might be. I’d like to find out.”

We took a taxi to the markets. There were carts in the streets and the taxi had to wait behind a wagon while two men argued with a third man who was holding a horse. The horse stood with its head down. The men stopped arguing long enough to let us through and then began again. We got out beside a restaurant with a light over the door.

Inside, men were eating at bare tables. Some had their hats on. There was a stove near the counter and a woman carried plates past it with a cloth wound round her hand. We sat at a small table against the wall and ordered onion soup and a bottle of white wine.

“This is good,” Brett said.

“You haven’t had it yet.”

“I mean being here.”

Her face looked tired under the light. She took off her hat again and laid it on the window ledge. Outside the window the wagons went by with their high loads. You could see the wheels and the horses’ legs and the men walking beside them.

The soup came in thick bowls with cheese browned over the bread. It was too hot to eat at first. Brett broke the bread with her spoon and let the steam out.

“I’m fearfully hungry after all.”

We ate the soup and had some more bread. The wine was cold. The woman brought a plate of ham and we ate that, too. Brett had stopped looking toward the door whenever it opened.

“Do you have to work early?” she asked.

“Not very.”

“You’ll be no good.”

“I can be no good in the afternoon.”

“It’s useful having a profession.”

“Very.”

“I might get one.”

“What would you do?”

“Tell people where to go. I’m rather good at it.”

“There’s no money in that.”

“There ought to be.”

Two men at the next table were asleep, sitting upright with their backs against the wall. Another man ate steadily from a plate of meat. He cut each piece before putting down his knife and taking a piece of bread. When he had finished he wiped the plate with the bread and called for coffee.

We had coffee, too. Afterward Brett leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

“I don’t want to go yet.”

“All right.”

“Only another minute.”

The woman came and took away the plates. She wiped the next table and put two clean glasses on it. A man opened the door and held it while another carried in a basket. Through the open door the air felt cold.

We stayed until the men who had been sleeping woke and went out together. Then I paid and we left. The sky above the roofs was beginning to lose its darkness. Under the market lights the vegetables looked wet and very bright. Men carried baskets on their shoulders, bent forward beneath them, and we kept close to the buildings to give them room.

Brett held my arm with both hands.

“I ought to go home.”

“I’ll get you a taxi.”

“Let’s walk a little first.”

We walked down toward the river. A café was opening and the man putting out the tables dragged them over the pavement. Brett stopped to pull on her gloves. She had trouble with one button and held her wrist out to me. I fastened it.

“Thank you, darling.”

There was a taxi at the corner near the quay. The driver was reading a newspaper with the light on inside. I went over and spoke to him and he folded the paper and climbed out to open the door.

Brett stood on the pavement looking at me.

“Will you be all right?”

“Yes.”

“You might sleep.”

“I’ll try it.”

“Do. It’s supposed to be very good.”

She got into the taxi and gave the driver her address. I shut the door. She lowered the window and put her hand out, and I held it until the driver started. Then I stepped back.

“Good night, Jake.”

“Good night.”

The taxi went across the bridge. I watched it reach the other side and turn out of sight. There was no reason to watch after that.

I walked home along the river. It was daylight now, and the lamps were still burning on the bridges. A man below the quay was washing the deck of a barge. He dipped his pail into the river and threw the water ahead of him, and it ran in a broad sheet over the boards. I went on beside the parapet with my hands in my pockets.

Mr. Franklin was the first of the two to remember that we had something better to do than sit upon the sand.

“Now, Betteredge,” he said, “give me your hand, and let us see whether I can pull you up.”

He pulled with a will; I rose with a groan; and between us we accomplished the business. When a young gentleman has got an old servant upon his legs, he commonly considers that he has done enough for him. Mr. Franklin brushed the sand off my coat into the bargain. There was the boy I remembered, under all the foreign varnish, as plain as ever!

“You haven’t forgotten the seven-and-sixpence, then, sir?” I said.

“Have you?”

I told him I had forgotten the interest.

He laughed, and put his hand into his pocket. I stopped him there. The money had been lent to him, years since, under circumstances connected with a broken window and a boy’s honour. He had remembered the debt. I wanted no better payment than that.

We turned towards the plantation. Mr. Franklin looked about him, and drew a long breath.

“The old air!” he said. “Nothing like it anywhere else, Betteredge.”

I was pleased to hear him say so. The air belonged, in a manner, to my lady’s property; and I have always considered a compliment to the estate as a compliment to the family.

“How did you come to find me here, sir?” I asked.

“Your daughter sent me. I walked from the lodge, and met her at the back of the house.”

“And your luggage?”

“Following me.”

“And yourself, Mr. Franklin, four hours before your time?”

At that he left off looking about him.

“A letter brought me,” he answered. “I received it in London this morning. There was just time to alter my arrangements and catch the earlier train.”

He spoke lightly enough; but his hand, which had been swinging his cane, held it still. Having lived a long time among gentlefolks, I have learnt that their hands will occasionally tell you what their tongues have been instructed to keep to themselves.

“Nothing wrong, I hope, sir?”

“That is what I want you to help me to judge.”

He took a letter from his breast-pocket, and gave it to me open.

We had reached the first of the fir-trees. There was a convenient stump beside the path, where I sometimes rested when the weather was warm and my legs were contrary. I sat down there, and got out my spectacles. Mr. Franklin remained standing, with his back towards the bay.

Here is the letter. It was afterwards put into my hands again for the purposes of this narrative; so that you have the words themselves, and none of my improvements upon them.

“Gray’s Inn, May 24th, 1848.

“My dear Franklin,

“Since you left me, I have received an inquiry concerning your journey into Yorkshire, which I do not altogether like. The person making it professed to act for a friend of your late uncle’s, but declined to give either his own name or his employer’s. He appeared particularly anxious to ascertain by what train you proposed travelling, and at what hour you would reach Lady Verinder’s house. I told him nothing.

“There may be a perfectly harmless explanation of this proceeding. Until we have it, however, I advise you to anticipate, instead of keeping, the time you have appointed for your arrival. Take the earliest train you conveniently can.

“On reaching the house, speak privately to Betteredge. Ask whether any strangers have lately been making inquiries there. His experience and attachment to the family may be of service to you. Avoid alarming Lady Verinder upon a suspicion which may prove groundless.

“You will understand that this advice concerns your journey only. It leaves untouched the question on which we differed this afternoon.

“Yours sincerely, “Matthew Bruff.”

I read the letter twice. Lawyers have a way of leaving a little bit of their meaning outside their words; and the second reading generally brings you within sight of it.

“Who is the friend of your late uncle’s, sir?”

“If Mr. Bruff doesn’t know, how should I?”

“And what was the question on which you differed?”

Mr. Franklin smiled.

“That, Betteredge, is outside the letter.”

Just what I had thought myself! I folded it up, and returned it to him.

“You have had strangers here?” he asked, before I could speak again.

I told him of the three Indians and their little English boy. He listened without interrupting until I came to Penelope’s following them. At that point he put his cane under his arm, and fixed his eyes on me.

There was no help for it now. I had promised my daughter to repeat her story, and I repeated it; giving her the credit of believing in it, and reserving my own opinion, which was that a trick remained a trick, though nobody happened to see how it was done.

“What were the boy’s exact words?” Mr. Franklin asked.

I gave them as nearly as I could.

“‘He has got It about him’?”

“Yes, sir. Those were the words.”

“And your daughter heard that herself?”

“With her own ears, Mr. Franklin. But if you ask me whether the boy saw anything in the ink——”

“I don’t ask you that.”

He turned towards the path by which we had come, and stood considering.

I confess I felt a little disappointed. When you have taken pains to show a young man the sensible view of a thing, it is trying to find him occupied with the foolish view instead.

“What do you make of it, sir?” I asked.

“I believe I know what they meant by ‘It.’”

He waited a moment before adding:

“The Moonstone.”

That was the first time the name passed between us that day. How much I understood, and how much I merely supposed I understood, would take a longer explanation than either of us gave the matter at the time. Mr. Franklin put his hand on my arm, and we went on again.

“Let me think this over before we speak further,” he said. “And tell Penelope I am much obliged to her.”

There was something else I had to tell him, and I chose the first convenient opening.

“My lady is very particular, sir, about everything connected with the late Colonel Herncastle.”

“I know.”

“She has had her troubles in that quarter, Mr. Franklin.”

“I know that too.”

He said it kindly, but with an end to it which I understood. We walked the rest of the way through the plantation talking of other matters.

Here was the advantage of his foreign education showing itself already. He could leave a subject alone. An Englishman, having once got hold of an unpleasant subject, generally considers himself bound in honour to worry it till it bites him.

At the house, I took him into my own sitting-room. My lady had not returned; and there was no occasion, that I could see, for keeping our young gentleman standing in the hall, with the servants finding errands past him every half-minute.

He looked round the room, and recognised the old things with a pleasure which went to my heart. Then his eye fell on Robinson Crusoe.

“Still at it, Betteredge?”

“More need of it than ever, sir.”

He opened the book, smiled over a page, and shut it again. That was his education. I should have read the page, and considered what it meant. However, I let it pass.

While I was asking what he would take after his journey, he drew a small packet from an inner pocket of his coat. It was wrapped in stout paper, tied, and sealed.

“Will you do something for me?” he said.

“Anything in reason, sir.”

“Lock this up till to-morrow morning.”

“Certainly, Mr. Franklin.”

“Where would you put it?”

“In the plate-room.”

“Who has the key?”

“I have.”

“And who else?”

“Nobody else has the key I use, sir. My lady keeps the duplicate.”

“That will do perfectly.”

He laid the packet in my hand.

You will naturally suppose that, after what had passed between us, I asked what was inside it. I did nothing of the sort. A sealed packet, to my thinking, asks you to hold your tongue almost as plainly as a shut door asks you to knock. Besides, there was a distinction between taking charge of a thing and being taken into the secrets of it. I had offered the first service. Mr. Franklin had not offered the second.

“Shall I give you a receipt, sir?”

He laughed at first, and then checked himself.

“No. But I should like to see it put away.”

I led him to the plate-room, unlocked the door, and opened a small cupboard within, in which certain spare articles were kept apart from the plate in daily use. The packet went upon the upper shelf. I locked the cupboard, locked the room, and put the keys in my pocket.

“There it stays till morning,” I said.

Mr. Franklin looked as if he had got rid of something heavier than the little parcel.

“Thank you, Betteredge.”

We had scarcely returned to my room when Penelope came to the door. She stopped on seeing Mr. Franklin, and would have gone away again if I had not called her in.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is about Rosanna, father.”

“What about her? Has she had her dinner?”

“She hasn’t come back.”

Mr. Franklin was looking at some prints upon my wall. He went on looking at them.

“Where is she, then?” I said.

“She has gone on to Cobb’s Hole. Duffy, the gardener’s boy, met her on the path, and she asked him to tell me. She is going to see her friend.”

This friend was a girl belonging to one of the fishing families, of whom I shall have to speak when the proper time comes. For the present, you need only know that Rosanna had my lady’s leave to visit her, and that there was nothing unusual in her going there.

There was something unusual in her going without coming home first; but I remembered our talk upon the beach, and thought a little company might do her good.

“Keep some dinner for her,” I said.

“I have kept it already.”

There is my daughter all over! Tell her to do a thing, and she has generally done it before you speak. A convenient quality in a servant; a trying quality in a child.

Mr. Franklin turned from the prints, and thanked her very seriously for what she had observed that morning. Penelope looked at me. I looked at the clock. My authority as a father had suffered enough for one afternoon.

The sound of wheels relieved us. My lady had returned.

I went out to receive her, and had the satisfaction of telling her that Mr. Franklin was in the house. Her face brightened directly. She gave me her shawl, and went into the morning-room, calling to him herself as he came into the hall.

For a little while there was nothing but pleasure in the meeting. She held him away from her, and looked at him; then drew him back, and kissed him again. A mother could scarcely have done more. He, on his side, forgot all his easy foreign ways, and stood before her with a tenderness and respect which became him better than the finest manners in Europe.

I was going out with the shawl when my lady stopped me.

“Wait a moment, Gabriel.”

She turned to her nephew.

“Before we settle down comfortably, Franklin, there is one thing which I must say.”

He bowed, and waited.

“You know my feeling about my brother John.”

“Yes, aunt.”

“His death has not altered what I owe to myself, or what I owe to my daughter. I will not have Colonel Herncastle discussed under my roof. Whatever business has brought his name back to other people, it must not bring it back to our conversation here.”

Mr. Franklin’s colour rose a little. He answered without hesitation.

“You have my promise.”

“I ask it once for all.”

“And I give it once for all, aunt.”

My lady took his hand. The cloud passed off her face; she began asking about his journey; and I carried away the shawl.

I have put down her words because I heard them, and his answer because I heard that too. What either of them privately thought is beyond me. There are writers, I am told, who can take you into everybody’s mind at once. I can only take you into Gabriel Betteredge’s; and you have had quite enough of that already.

The remainder of the afternoon went quietly. Mr. Franklin’s luggage arrived; the servants recovered from the surprise of seeing him; and the house began to feel as if he had been with us a week.

Once, passing me on the stairs, he asked whether Penelope had heard anything further. I said, “Nothing, sir.” He nodded, and went on. Once again, when I was attending to a matter in the hall, I found him at the open door looking down the drive. He came in directly, and asked me a question about the gardens. I answered the question about the gardens.

Towards evening I inquired for Rosanna. She had not returned.

There was still daylight enough, and the walk from Cobb’s Hole was no great matter. I told Penelope to keep the girl’s supper ready, as she had kept her dinner. My daughter said she wished Rosanna had come home first.

“So do I,” I answered. “Wishing won’t fetch her.”

I spoke rather shortly. The truth is, I had begun to wish it twice as much as Penelope did.

After the dinner things had been removed, I made my customary round. The plate-room door was fast. I tried it with my hand, though I knew I had locked it; felt for the keys, though I knew they were in my pocket; and was angry with myself for both proceedings. Mr. Franklin’s caution was catching.

It grew late. The little noises of the household ceased one after another. I went out to the back court, where the air was still mild, and took my place in the beehive chair. A candle, sheltered within the open door of my sitting-room, gave me light enough for my book.

Robinson Crusoe lay open upon my knee; the sealed packet was locked away; and I had nothing left to do but read.

I read the same sentence three times.

At the fourth attempt, Penelope came softly to the door. I looked up before she spoke.

“No, father,” she said. “Not yet.”

I settled my spectacles, and turned again to Robinson Crusoe. But my ears had taken the business out of my eyes’ hands. I sat in my chair listening for Rosanna’s footstep.

Robert accommodated his step to Madame Ratignolle’s, which grew somewhat brisker when they had left the loose sand and reached the firmer path between the gardens. She still rested heavily upon his arm. Her other hand held her skirts away from a growth of weeds that had encroached upon the walk.

“You brought the whole establishment to look for us,” she said. “Were they all crying for their mothers?”

“Not one of them. It was I who was crying. Your little girl consented to come and comfort me.”

“She will have spoiled your coat with her shoes. There is a mark upon the sleeve.”

Robert looked indifferently at the small, dusty impression.

“That is nothing. I had promised to find you before the sun reached the middle of the tent. Raoul was very particular about it. He has an idea that his mother can move the tent if the shadow does not suit him.”

“He is a little tyrant,” Madame Ratignolle declared, with the indulgence which she accorded to such faults in children.

They walked a short distance in silence. The sunshade cast a shifting patch of white light upon Robert’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Pontellier was enjoying herself,” he said. “I was sorry to disturb her. One is never certain what will make Mrs. Pontellier happy.”

“You say that because she does not always laugh at your nonsense. I assure you, she can be very gay.”

“Oh, I know it! Yesterday she laughed because I could not mend the fastening of her sketch-book. There was nothing amusing in that. I broke my knife.”

Madame Ratignolle laughed also, and Robert gave her an exaggerated account of his difficulties with the fastening, which occupied them until they reached the house.

Edna remained with the children beneath the awning. They required her to sit in a particular place, to hold certain shells, and to decide a dispute which neither of them was willing to submit to her judgment when it had been given. The little Ratignolle girl wished to go after her mother. Having been persuaded that Madame Ratignolle would return, she forgot her wish and began patiently to fill one of Edna’s slippers with sand.

Edna watched the small, absorbed face without interfering. Her own thoughts were still scattered along the course over which her words had traveled that morning. Some of the things she had said appeared to her already to have been said by another woman. She could not have repeated them now. The children’s voices came pleasantly between her and the effort to recall them.

When she returned to the cottage, a telegram was waiting for her upon the table. The servant who brought it had put a glass upon one corner to keep it from blowing away.

It was from her husband.

“Business makes it impossible to come out Saturday. Shall remain in town over Sunday. All well. Write if you need anything. Léonce.”

She read it twice, standing beside the table with her hat still on. Then she placed it under the glass again. She had been thinking that morning of a little excursion which might be made when her husband came; the children had heard of it and would remember. It would be necessary to tell them that it was postponed. Beyond this she could discover no definite disappointment.

At dinner she spoke of the telegram to Madame Lebrun, who deplored the claims of business upon the gentlemen. There were always matters which could not possibly wait, and which nevertheless seemed to Madame Lebrun to have waited very comfortably on former occasions.

Robert offered to take the boys fishing on Sunday. He made the offer to the boys themselves, and before the meal was ended they had arranged a number of details which he found it necessary to disallow.

The afternoon lay hot and quiet about the cottages. Even the children, after some protest, had yielded to the nurse’s command to lie down. Edna sat for a little while with a book open upon her lap. A fly persisted in settling upon the same word, returning to it each time she moved her hand across the page. At last she closed the book and went into her room for the key of the bath-house.

She did not seek Robert or leave any message for him. It occurred to her that he would be astonished to find she had gone without him, and the thought gave a little briskness to her preparations.

The path was deserted. Beyond the gardens she could see the tops of the bath-houses, and the water moving in broken flashes between them. The wind had fallen somewhat since morning, but it still pressed her dress against her knees as she approached the shore.

She changed her clothes slowly in the narrow compartment. There was sand upon the rug where she had thrown it, and she shook this out upon the step. The commonplace occupation detained her, though she had no reason for wishing to be detained.

The water was warm about her ankles. Farther out it struck cold against her knees and made her catch her breath. She advanced until it rose above her waist, keeping her eyes upon a post near the bath-house, as if that familiar object afforded some assurance of her position.

She had been instructed so often that the several directions confused her. There was always an arm to support her, a voice to bid her do this or refrain from doing that; and beneath all was her conviction that, once the support were removed, she must sink.

Now there was no voice. She bent her knees and let the water rise to her shoulders. For a moment she remained thus, feeling it lift the loose folds of her bathing dress. Then, with an abrupt movement which was almost impatience, she threw herself forward.

She struck out twice, awkwardly; a third time, with a sudden recollection that she must move her feet. The water held her. She felt it beneath her breast and along her limbs, yielding and sustaining. In her surprise she tried to stand, swallowed a little salt water, and found the bottom with both feet.

She stood coughing and laughing softly to herself. Her heart beat with a violence quite out of proportion to the exertion. She had gone only a few feet; the post which she had chosen scarcely seemed to have altered its relation to her. Nevertheless, there had been a space between one footing and the next in which she had needed neither the bottom nor a hand.

She did not try again immediately. She moved about in the shallow water, dipping her hands into it and letting it stream between her fingers. When she at last repeated the effort, she was less fortunate, and came to her feet almost at once. But this did not undo what had happened.

The lady in black was upon the neighboring gallery when Edna emerged from her bath-house. Her prayer-book lay closed upon her knee. Edna had passed her many times without exchanging a word.

“You have dropped something,” the lady said.

It was the key, which had slipped from the folds of the bathing clothes Edna carried. She stooped to recover it.

“Thank you. I should have gone all the way back without missing it.”

“The sand hides things very quickly.”

Her voice was ordinary and rather thin. Edna had somehow expected it to be otherwise. She looked at the lady’s narrow hands resting upon the little book.

“Have you been here long?” she asked.

“Only a little while. It is cooler here.”

“Yes,” Edna agreed.

There seemed nothing further to say. The lady inclined her head, and Edna went on, feeling a curious satisfaction that the encounter had required no account of her afternoon.

Madame Ratignolle came to the cottage before supper, bringing a pattern which she had promised the nurse. She found Edna brushing the sand from the children’s shoes. The boys had gone off barefoot, leaving them in the middle of the floor.

“You see what employment they provide for me,” Edna said, holding up a shoe.

Adèle seated herself and spread the pattern over her knee. She spoke of the children, of the heat, and of a dress which she feared would be too small before it could be finished. Presently she looked up with a smile.

“Robert was very much concerned because we had escaped him this morning. He said, ‘One is never certain what will make Mrs. Pontellier happy.’ I told him you could be gay enough when you chose.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes; and then he complained of your laughing at his broken knife. You should have seen his face!”

Edna smiled, but asked no more about the conversation. When Adèle inquired how she had passed the afternoon, she answered that she had been down to bathe. She felt no impulse to tell her anything further.

That night Robert sat for a time upon the steps and related some incident of the day. Edna listened, answering when an answer was needed. He went away rather early, supposing her tired.

The children were asleep. Through their open door she could distinguish the pale heap of a discarded garment beside a bed. She remained alone on the gallery, her hands resting loosely in her lap.

“One is never certain what will make Mrs. Pontellier happy.”

She heard it in Adèle’s voice, with the little friendly amusement that had accompanied its repetition. She wondered what reply she might have made had Robert spoken to her instead. None came readily. Her arms were a little weary, and she moved them against the sides of her chair, remembering the brief distance through which the water had sustained her.

The symptoms, as there set forth, corresponded so exactly with those I had witnessed that I closed the volume with a feeling almost of triumph. The next moment I was ashamed of myself. A woman lay dead upstairs, and I was congratulating myself upon the correctness of a theory!

Nevertheless, I put the book aside where I could readily find it again, and hurried out.

The morning was already warm. There had been no rain, and the gravel crunched dryly beneath my feet. At the lodge a curtain moved as I passed. It gave me an uncomfortable impression that the news had preceded me, and that already, behind the tranquil windows of the village, people were whispering of Styles.

Poirot was lodged with his compatriots in a little house beyond the church. I found the front door open, and my friend himself standing in the narrow passage, engaged in brushing a speck of dust from his coat. His hat and stick lay ready upon a chair.

“Ah, Hastings! I expected you.”

“You know, then?”

“Of Madame Inglethorp’s death? Yes. Baily told me. He stopped here on his way back with Dr. Wilkins. The doctor wished to borrow something from my neighbour, who has worked at the hospital. Baily saw me at the window. Afterwards, from his face as they drove away, I feared the worst. A maid from Styles has just confirmed it.”

He took my hand, and for a moment retained it.

“She was very good to us, my friend.”

There was something in his voice which checked the eager words upon my lips. Then he straightened himself.

“You come from Monsieur Cavendish?”

“Yes. He has given me full authority to ask you to investigate.”

“And the doctors?”

“They insist upon a post-mortem. Poirot, I have just been looking up strychnine poisoning——”

“One moment.”

He ushered me into a small sitting-room, placed a chair for me, and seated himself opposite.

“Tell me what you saw. Afterwards, if you wish, you shall tell me what you looked up.”

I began my account. He listened without interruption until I described our entrance through Alfred Inglethorp’s room.

“The bed had not been slept in? You are certain?”

“Absolutely.”

“Continue.”

At the mention of the overturned table he raised a finger.

“You saw it fall?”

“No. It was already overturned.”

“Then we will say that it was overturned. We will not yet say who overturned it.”

I felt that this was an unnecessary distinction, but proceeded. Twice he made me go back over the position of the doors, and once over the exact words Mrs. Inglethorp had spoken. When I described Lawrence’s extraordinary appearance, he remained for some moments staring at the ceiling.

“And you followed the direction of his eyes?”

“Yes. There was nothing there but the mantelpiece and the fire.”

“A fire? In this weather?”

“Only ashes. But they were still glowing.”

“Ah!”

He asked me to repeat Mary Cavendish’s words concerning Cynthia. I did so as nearly as I could remember them.

“And Madame Cavendish was dressed?”

“In her land smock. She often goes out very early.”

“You explain everything, Hastings. It is a great comfort.”

I glanced at him suspiciously, but his face was perfectly grave.

When I had finished, he rose.

“We will go.”

“You agree with me, surely, about the strychnine?”

“I agree that Madame Inglethorp died very suddenly, and that two doctors desire to know why. That is enough to begin with.”

It was considerably later than I had intended when we left the little house. Poirot, whose appearance was always a matter of the most scrupulous care, stopped to adjust his tie in the glass by the door.

I could scarcely restrain my impatience.

“Every minute may be important.”

“Precisely. Therefore we must not waste one in arriving with our ideas in disorder.”

We had reached the bend from which the lodge gates first become visible when Dorcas came hurrying towards us. The old servant’s face was swollen with crying.

“Oh, Mr. Hastings, sir! Mr. John sent me to see if you were coming. Mr. Inglethorp has returned.”

“When?”

“Not ten minutes ago, sir.”

Poirot removed his hat.

“You are Dorcas? Madame has spoken of you. Permit me to offer you my sympathy.”

The simple courtesy brought fresh tears to her eyes.

“Thank you, sir. I’ve been with her ten years. It doesn’t seem possible.”

She turned and walked beside us, telling us that Alfred had come up the drive on foot. John had met him in the hall and had taken him into the morning-room.

“He seemed quite overcome, sir.”

There was a restraint in her manner which made this statement singularly unconvincing.

We found John waiting at the front door. He welcomed Poirot with a quietness for which I was grateful.

“It is very good of you to come. Hastings has explained?”

“Everything that he knows.”

“My brother still thinks we are making a mistake. I hope to God he is right. Inglethorp is here now.”

He hesitated, then led us into the morning-room.

Alfred Inglethorp sat near the window, his great black beard sunk upon his breast. He rose at our entrance and extended a hand vaguely towards Poirot.

“This dreadful blow! My poor Emily! I cannot realise it.”

His voice was deep and shaken. Yet the words had an effect upon me very different from that which they were presumably intended to produce.

“I understand you were away during the night,” said Poirot gently.

“Yes. An unfortunate chance—the cruellest chance imaginable.”

He passed a hand across his forehead.

“After leaving Dr. Bauerstein, I walked on to Mr. Denby’s. You know Denby, John—the agent. There were some accounts of my wife’s which I wished to discuss. We sat over them until it was very late.”

John nodded without speaking.

“When I came to leave, I discovered that I had not my latch-key. I remembered then that I had left it on the little table in the hall before going out. Denby urged me to remain. Rather than disturb the household, I accepted. If only I had known!”

“At what time did you leave Mr. Denby this morning?” asked John.

“A little before seven, I believe. His clock is not reliable. I came straight here.”

Poirot made a sympathetic little gesture.

“You have not breakfasted, monsieur?”

“I could not touch anything.”

“Nevertheless, a cup of coffee——”

“No, no!”

He turned away abruptly to the window. John looked at me, and we withdrew.

In the hall Dorcas was waiting with a tray of cups. John told her to take some coffee to Mr. Inglethorp, whether he wanted it or not, and went off to find his wife.

Dorcas remained motionless.

“Well?” I asked.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I couldn’t help hearing what was said. The morning-room door being open.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Inglethorp did take the latch-key.”

I stared at her.

“Are you sure?”

“I handed it to him myself, sir. He couldn’t find it on the table, and asked me. It had slipped down behind the card-tray. I found it, and put it into his hand just as Dr. Bauerstein came through from the drawing-room.”

“Perhaps he put it down again.”

“No, sir. He put it into his waistcoat pocket. I saw him.”

I turned triumphantly to Poirot. He was contemplating the pattern of the hall carpet.

“Thank you, Dorcas,” he said. “That is quite clear.”

When she had gone, I caught his arm.

“Well?”

“Well, my friend?”

“The key!”

“Yes. There appears to be a difference of recollection.”

“A difference of——! Really, Poirot!”

He looked at me with sudden sharpness.

“Will it become smaller if you speak louder?”

John returned before I could reply. He had the two keys which Dr. Bauerstein had given him, and offered them to Poirot.

“Would you like to go upstairs?”

“If you please. And afterwards I should be grateful for a little time with the servants. Separately, if it can be arranged.”

“Of course. You shall have every facility.”

He accompanied us to the door of Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, but there his resolution seemed to fail him.

“You won’t need me?”

“Not at present. I will send for you if it is necessary.”

John handed him the keys and went away.

The room looked strangely different in the full morning light. The curtains had been drawn back, and the terrible stillness about the bed oppressed me more than the confusion of the night had done. I remained near the door while Poirot stood for a moment with bowed head.

Then, very quietly, he began his examination.

His movements were rapid and methodical. He inspected the bolt of the door I had opened, tried it twice, and scrutinised the wood about its socket. The broken communicating door received an equally careful attention.

“This was fastened by a bolt also?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He knelt, looking at the splintered framework, and then passed into Alfred Inglethorp’s room. In a few minutes he returned.

“And the door to Mademoiselle Cynthia?”

I pointed it out. He examined it without opening it.

I was burning to direct his attention to what seemed to me the important objects—the cup, the scattered fragments upon the carpet, and the bottles on the washstand. But he permitted nothing to escape him, and I soon perceived that suggestions were unnecessary.

He took measurements with a little tape, entered figures in a pocket-book, and once lay flat upon the floor to look beneath a chest of drawers.

“You see, Hastings, your long legs would be of no advantage here.”

I did not feel disposed to joke.

At the mantelpiece he paused. There was a clock in the centre, flanked by ornaments which seemed to me peculiarly ugly. He looked from these to the bed, and then towards the place where Lawrence had stood.

“Here?”

“A little more to the left.”

He moved as I directed, remaining perfectly still for some seconds.

Next he examined the grate. I watched him eagerly, but he neither exclaimed nor summoned me. His attention passed almost at once to the hearthrug. He smoothed one corner, then bent over the mantelpiece again.

With a pair of small tweezers he drew something from beneath the corner of the clock.

“What is it?” I asked.

He held it out upon his palm.

It was a narrow strip of cream-coloured paper, folded several times upon itself. One edge was darkened with dust. There was no writing upon it that I could see.

“That?”

“Yes, that.”

“But what is it?”

“A little piece of paper, my friend.”

“I can see that.”

“Then already we are in agreement.”

He placed it carefully in an envelope.

“Surely you can tell me what you think it means?”

“No.”

His refusal was so unexpected and so definite that I stared.

“Not even a hint?”

“Not even the smallest. If I am mistaken, I shall have saved you the trouble of believing something foolish.”

I thought this rather poor treatment of one who had brought him into the affair. My annoyance must have been apparent, for he laid a hand affectionately upon my shoulder.

“Do not be offended. You shall see it again. Indeed, I shall want your assistance.”

This mollified me somewhat.

Shortly afterwards we went downstairs. John had arranged for a little breakfast in the dining-room, and insisted upon our taking it. Lawrence was there, but rose almost immediately upon our entrance.

“I hope you have found some natural explanation,” he said stiffly.

“I have scarcely begun to look for one,” replied Poirot.

Lawrence glanced at me.

“These things are easily exaggerated.”

He left us without waiting for an answer.

Cynthia came in a few minutes later. She had changed into her dispensary dress, though John had told her there was no question of her going to Tadminster that morning. She looked pale now, and very young. At the sight of Poirot she stopped uncertainly.

I introduced him. His manner towards her had a delicacy which I should scarcely have expected from his brisk proceedings upstairs.

She sat down, but pushed away the plate John offered her.

“I feel so stupid. I can’t seem to remember properly.”

Poirot put down his cup.

“Did you sleep last night as soundly as you usually do, mademoiselle?”

“Oh, much more soundly. I never heard anything until Mary woke me. Even then I could hardly keep my eyes open.”

He inclined his head, and asked her nothing further.

Mary appeared in the doorway and called Cynthia softly. The girl went to her at once. I noticed that Mary avoided looking in my direction.

The next two hours were occupied in a manner which sorely tried my patience. Poirot talked with Dorcas, and afterwards with Annie. He went into the boudoir and came out again, examined the hall table, and spent several minutes at the front door. None of these proceedings produced the revelation I expected.

Once I reminded him of Alfred’s account.

“Surely we ought to go to Denby’s.”

“That will be attended to.”

“And the latch-key?”

“It will not run away.”

“The person who has it may.”

He gave me a reproachful look.

“Hastings, you are determined to make me say more than I know.”

At about eleven John brought word that the doctors would require the room later. Poirot said he had nearly finished for the present, but desired one more uninterrupted inspection. John readily assented.

We went upstairs together. Somewhere in the house a woman was crying quietly. Poirot stopped until the sound ceased, then unlocked the bedroom door.

When we were inside he locked it again, placing the key upon the chest of drawers.

The sunlight had moved across the carpet. It now illuminated the overturned table and brought out, with distressing clearness, every small disorder of the room. Poirot drew two chairs towards the window. Between them he placed a little work-table which had stood against the wall.

Then he took the envelope from his pocket.

“Now, my friend.”

He laid the folded strip of paper upon the polished surface between us.

I bent over it. The edge which had been beneath the clock was noticeably cleaner than the rest. Beyond that, it was as unpromising an object as I had ever seen.

“Well?” I said.

Poirot did not answer immediately. His eyes travelled to the mantelpiece, and thence to the door through which we had forced our entrance. From below came the faint sound of the hall clock striking the half-hour.

I waited with increasing impatience.

At last he tapped the table beside the little paper.

“We have perhaps made a mistake, Hastings. We have been looking for someone who disturbed this room. We must look also for someone who was at great pains to leave it undisturbed.”

I stared at him. I had not the least idea what he meant.

When she opened her eyes again the carriage had stopped, and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her by the shoulder.

“Come along,” she said. “Here we are at last, and a wet night it is.”

The window was quite black now, except where a lamp outside made a yellow patch upon it. Mary had been asleep so long that she did not at first remember where she was. Then she saw the purple flowers trembling on Mrs. Medlock’s bonnet, and remembered everything.

Her legs felt stiff when she stood up, and she was very cross indeed as she followed the housekeeper out upon the platform. Rain was blowing beneath the station roof. A porter went by carrying a lantern, and the light shone upon wet boxes and a great deal of shining water.

A man stood a little apart from the others, with his coat collar turned up about his face. He was not a tall man, and there was something uneven about his shoulders which made Mary look at him twice. Mrs. Medlock looked at him also, but with such surprise that she almost dropped her bag.

“Mr. Craven, sir!” she exclaimed. “I never expected—”

“The carriage is outside,” he said.

His voice was low and short, as if he had no time to finish saying things. He glanced at Mary.

“This is the child?”

“Yes, sir. Miss Mary Lennox.”

Mary stared at him openly. She had expected something much stranger, though she could not have said what it was. His face was thin and looked tired, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something a long way behind her.

“Come,” he said.

That was all he said to her.

He turned and walked down the platform, and Mrs. Medlock hurried after him so quickly that Mary had to hurry too. She did not like hurrying. She thought that if he had come to meet her he ought to have stood still whilst she looked at him.

There was a closed carriage waiting beyond the station lamps. Mr. Craven stood aside whilst Mrs. Medlock helped Mary into it, and then got in himself. He sat opposite them, drawing a rug over his knees. The door was shut, somebody called out to the coachman, and they drove away.

For a little while there were lights in windows and lights over shops, and Mary could see people holding umbrellas very low over their heads. Then the houses grew fewer, and presently there were no houses at all.

Mrs. Medlock settled herself in her corner with an air quite different from the one she had worn in the railway carriage. She did not seem to have anything to say. Once she began, “We had a good journey, sir,” but as Mr. Craven did not answer she went no further.

Mary found this rather interesting. Mrs. Medlock had spoken a great deal when there was no one but herself to listen.

The wheels made a soft, heavy sound upon the wet road. Sometimes a branch brushed the carriage, and sometimes the wind struck it so sharply that Mary felt it shake. She looked through the window, but there was little to be seen except darkness moving past darkness.

“Is this the moor?” she asked at last.

“Not yet,” answered Mrs. Medlock in a subdued voice.

Mary waited. It seemed to her that they had driven a very long way before the housekeeper spoke again.

“Now we’re on it.”

Mary pressed nearer the glass. There were no trees now to pass between her and the sky. Everything had opened out into a great black emptiness. The clouds were not quite so black as the earth, and she could see where one ended and the other began, but there was nothing else to look at.

“Is there anything on it?” she asked.

“Heather and gorse and sheep,” said Mrs. Medlock. “Plenty of things, if it was daylight.”

Mary thought she would not care to be a sheep if it meant staying out in such a place. She looked at Mr. Craven, but his head was turned away.

Then, quite suddenly, the horses stopped.

There was a shout from the box and a scraping of hoofs. The carriage gave a little jerk which threw Mary forward, and she caught at Mrs. Medlock’s sleeve.

“Whatever’s the matter now?” said the housekeeper.

Mr. Craven let down his window. Wind and rain came in together, cold enough to make Mary draw back.

“What is it?”

“Hurdle blown across, sir. There’s a sheep fast in it.”

The coachman climbed down, and his light presently moved past the window. Mary heard a rough, frightened scrambling and a man saying, “Stand still, then, will tha!”

Mr. Craven opened the door and got out. For a moment Mary could see the road in the carriage lamps. Something like a piece of wooden fence lay crookedly across it, and a wet woolly creature struggled at one end.

Mrs. Medlock leaned out.

“Has it hurt itself?” she called.

Mary slipped past her.

She did it partly because she wanted to see the sheep and partly because she was tired of sitting still. Nobody had ever expected her to ask before doing what she chose. By the time Mrs. Medlock turned round, she had stepped down into the road.

“Miss Mary! Come back this minute!”

But Mary had taken two steps away from the carriage, to avoid the horses, and found herself standing upon the moor.

It was very queer indeed.

The ground yielded beneath her boots, and something wet and prickly caught at the hem of her dress. The wind seemed to come from everywhere at once. In India there had nearly always been a wall or a veranda or a servant somewhere near her. Here there was nothing at her back but miles and miles of blackness. She could not have said why she knew there were miles of it, but she did know.

A gust lifted her hat, and she clutched it with both hands.

The sheep gave a sudden plunge. The coachman had loosened its leg, and it stumbled away past the light and disappeared as if the moor had swallowed it. Mr. Craven stood holding the lantern whilst the man dragged the hurdle off the road.

Mary had meant to go nearer, but she did not move. She had a singular feeling that if she went beyond the little circle of light she might never find the carriage again.

“Well, of all the tiresome children!” exclaimed Mrs. Medlock, descending upon her. “Out here in your thin shoes, and wet to the knees, I’ll be bound!”

“I wanted to see,” said Mary.

“You’ve seen now. Get in.”

Mary was quite ready to get in, though she would not have admitted it. Mrs. Medlock rubbed her shoes with a corner of a travelling rug and talked under her breath. Mr. Craven returned to his seat without looking at either of them.

They had been stopped scarcely more than a minute or two, but the carriage seemed smaller and warmer afterwards. Mary put her cold hands together beneath the rug. She was thinking about the sheep vanishing into the dark. It had known where to go, though there had been no one to tell it.

At last the sound of the wheels changed. They rolled more smoothly, and after a time the carriage turned and stopped before a great house.

Mary could not see how great it was. The lamps showed steps and a doorway, and above them there was a confused black mass with a light in one high window. Before she had time to look further, the door was opened and a man stood waiting in a broad space of firelight.

Mr. Craven went up the steps first.

“Pitcher,” he said, “I shall want the early train.”

“Yes, sir.”

He passed into the house. Mary saw him cross the hall and turn out of sight. He did not say good-night.

She stood upon a rug whilst Mrs. Medlock gave directions about the luggage. The hall was so large that the fire, though it was a big one, seemed to warm only its own end of it. There were strange things upon the walls, and faces which looked down out of dark pictures. A suit of armour stood in a corner. Mary was glad it had no one inside it.

“Come along,” said Mrs. Medlock. “You’ll be wanting your supper and your bed.”

She led her up a broad staircase and through a passage, and then through another which seemed narrower. Their footsteps sounded very loud, though there were carpets. Once Mrs. Medlock opened the wrong door, muttered something, and shut it again.

“Is that one of the rooms I mustn’t go into?” asked Mary.

“You’re to go into the rooms you’re shown,” answered Mrs. Medlock. “That’s easy enough to remember.”

The room into which she was taken had a fire and two candles burning in it. A smaller room opened out of it, and there Mary saw a bed with curtains. Her box had already been brought upstairs.

“You’ll sleep in there,” said Mrs. Medlock. “Take your things off, and your supper’ll be brought up directly.”

She went away before Mary could tell her that she did not take her own things off. Mary stood waiting angrily for a few moments. Then, as there was nobody to be angry with, she pulled at her gloves and began to unfasten her mantle.

She had only just succeeded when a knock came at the door.

“Come in,” she called.

The man who entered carried a large tray. He was a broad, elderly man with sandy whiskers, and Mary stared at him because she had expected a woman. He set the tray upon a table near the fire and looked at her damp skirt.

“Tha’s gotten a sup o’ weather coming ower,” he said. “Draw up to t’fire. There’s nowt like a good blaze when tha’s nesh.”

Mary stared harder.

“What?” she said.

He moved a chair towards the table.

“Sit thee down an’ get summat warm into thee. Tha’ll be fair clemmed.”

“I don’t understand what you are saying,” said Mary. “You speak very queerly.”

The man looked at her for a moment, and then his sandy whiskers spread in a smile.

“Yorkshire,” he said. “It’s Yorkshire I’m speaking.”

“I don’t know Yorkshire.”

“Nay, tha’ll learn.”

She understood that, and disliked it.

“I don’t want to learn. I want my supper.”

“Well, there it is,” he answered, quite cheerfully.

He lifted a cover, and a pleasant smell of hot broth came out. There was bread, too, and cold chicken, and Mary discovered that she was hungry. The man placed the spoon beside her bowl.

“Mind, it’s hot,” he said, saying each word very distinctly.

“I know that,” answered Mary.

He went away still looking cheerful, which she thought very stupid of him. But she sat down and ate the broth. She ate more than she had expected to eat, and when Mrs. Medlock returned she found the bread gone also.

“So you’ve brought an appetite with you,” she remarked.

“The man talks so that I cannot understand him,” said Mary.

“That’ll be old Diggory. He’s lived here all his life.”

“He ought to speak properly.”

Mrs. Medlock gave her short laugh.

“You tell him so to-morrow. Now come to bed.”

The sheets felt cool, and the bed was much larger than Mary thought a bed need be. Mrs. Medlock drew the curtains a little aside so that the firelight from the outer room could reach her.

It was whilst she was doing this that they both heard the sound.

It came from somewhere beyond the wall at the head of the bed—a slow scraping, followed by a dull knock. Mary lifted her head.

“What is that?”

“The wind,” said Mrs. Medlock.

Mary listened. There was a pause, and then the scraping came again, ending in three small knocks close together.

“It sounds as if something were being pulled.”

“Old houses make all sorts of noises on a wild night. Lie down.”

Mrs. Medlock spoke sharply, and went to the door between the rooms. She stood there a moment with her hand upon it.

“Is there a room on the other side?” Mary asked.

“There’s rooms everywhere. I told you that.”

“Who is in it?”

“You’ve had questions enough for one night. Go to sleep.”

She took the candles away. Presently the outer door closed, and the little bar of light beneath it disappeared.

Mary lay still. She did not feel sleepy now. She looked into the dark above her and listened to the wind, which she could hear quite plainly rushing against the windows. It made a great blowing sound, and once it rattled the glass. But it did not sound at all like something being drawn slowly across a floor.

She waited for the scraping to begin again.

Mrs. Medlock had looked cross when she asked about it. Grown-up people often looked cross when they did not mean to answer questions. Mary knew that much about them.

She pulled the bedclothes up beneath her chin. She was in bed in the dark in a house where she did not know her way to a single other room, and she had never felt more wide awake.

She would find out for herself what the sound was.