The Chapters

Robert walked at the pace Madame Ratignolle chose, which was so leisurely that the children had gone a considerable distance ahead of them before they reached the sandy path. She had taken his arm to spare her cramped limbs, but presently her steps grew freer. She did not release him. The sunshade, which she carried in her other hand, tilted first toward him and then away as the wind caught it.

“You have brought away the whole nursery,” she said.

“They brought me. I had no authority in the matter.”

“Mrs. Pontellier looked quite astonished to see you.”

“She looked astonished to see the children. I believe she was content enough where she was.”

Madame Ratignolle glanced at him. He was watching the path, where her little girl had stopped to examine something among the grasses. He called to the child to keep with the others.

“You two had been talking a long while,” he said.

“We had. You must not ask me what about.”

“I was not going to ask.”

He smiled, but for a few steps he had the air of one who had lost a question and was trying to recover it. The wind drove a little sand against their shoes. Madame Ratignolle stopped to fasten the sunshade more securely, and Robert took it from her while she did so.

“Mrs. Pontellier says more when she is silent than most women do in an hour,” he observed.

Madame Ratignolle looked at him again. He had spoken without smiling, and was now occupied in setting the sunshade at an angle which might protect her face. She thanked him for this service. Nothing more was said of Edna. At the first turn in the path, where the gardens came into view, Madame Ratignolle called her little girl back to her, and the child walked the rest of the way holding a fold of her mother’s skirt.

Edna remained with the children under the tent until the nurse-maids came to take them home. Raoul had filled both his pockets with wet sand and could not be persuaded to empty them. His brother had found a shell which he declared was broken only on one side and therefore worth keeping. Edna heard their dispute with a patience she did not always possess. The sea lay before her, agitated by the wind, and each time the children drew her attention to some small treasure she had to bring her eyes back from it.

On the way to the cottage they passed the lady in black. She was standing beside the sandy path, her book closed against her breast. Raoul’s brother went ahead with his shell. Raoul hung back, burdened by the sand in his pockets.

“Madame,” said the lady in black.

Edna turned, uncertain that the word was meant for her. Though she had seen the lady every day, she had never heard her voice.

“Your little boy left this upon the gallery.” She held out a wooden spade, scarcely larger than her hand. “He said he would come for it, but I thought he might forget.”

Raoul claimed it at once. Edna thanked her.

“He was very careful to tell me it was his,” the lady added.

Her face, under the dark veil, wore an expression of mild interest. She gave the spade into Raoul’s hand and went on toward the house. Edna watched her a moment. She had imagined a severe voice for the lady, merely because of the black dress and the book. The voice had been low and pleasant. Raoul struck the handle of the spade against his knee all the way home.

A telegram was waiting for Edna at the cottage. It lay upon the table where Léonce’s box had stood when it arrived, and for an instant she feared news of illness. The nurse opened the shutters while Edna broke the envelope.

Business detained her husband in the city. He would not come to Grand Isle for the weekend. He sent his love to the children.

The message was short enough to be read several times without occupying a minute. Edna stood with it in her hand while Raoul showed the nurse how much sand his pockets could contain. She spoke to the children of their father’s absence. They listened, and then returned to the more immediate question of whether the sand might be saved in a dish. Edna said no. She put the telegram away in a drawer and washed her hands before luncheon, although they were quite clean.

She had grown accustomed to Léonce’s arrival on Saturday, to the sight of his travelling bag, to his questions about the children and his account of what he had eaten and whom he had seen in New Orleans. She could picture the vacant place those things would leave. She could picture, too, the hours of the weekend passing without them. This gave her a faint pleasure which troubled her less than she supposed it ought.

Madame Ratignolle came in after luncheon with a length of white sewing in her hands. She meant to stay only a moment. There was a loose place in the hem which she could attend to as well in Edna’s company as at home, and she had seen Edna sitting alone through the open door.

“You have tired yourself with the walk,” Edna said.

“No. I was stiff when we rose, but it passed before we reached the house. Robert was made to walk so slowly that he complained of it.”

“He complains of nothing in earnest.”

“He spoke of you in earnest.”

Edna looked up from the telegram, which she had taken out again without intending to show it. Madame Ratignolle drew the thread through the linen and smoothed the seam with her thumb.

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Mrs. Pontellier says more when she is silent than most women do in an hour.’”

Edna gave a short laugh. “He must have found me very dull this morning.”

“That was not what he meant.”

“How do you know what he meant?”

“I heard him say it, ma chère.”

Edna folded the telegram along its original creases. “Léonce is not coming on Saturday,” she said, and passed the message across. Madame Ratignolle read it, expressed regret, and began to speak of an evening she might spend at the cottage with her husband and the children. Edna answered her readily enough. Yet she was conscious of the care with which she kept her eyes on the white sewing, as if Madame Ratignolle had been studying her face instead of making a hem.

After Adèle had gone, the cottage was still. The children had been put to rest, and the nurse had taken her work elsewhere. Edna waited until she heard no movement from their room. She put on her bathing dress and drew a loose garment over it. Her key was in the pocket where she had left it that morning.

The path seemed longer without a companion. The sun was high, though the afternoon had advanced, and the camomile gave off a dry, sharp scent where her skirt brushed it. Edna met no one among the gardens. At the beach the distant bathers had gone, and a few gulls stood upon the wet sand, facing into the wind. She passed the neighboring bath-house, whose gallery was empty, and unlocked her own compartment.

She had entered the water many times at Grand Isle. Usually some one went with her, and she remained where she could stand, making vigorous motions with her arms and going nowhere. That afternoon she waded out until the water reached her waist. It was warmer than she expected near the shore and colder when a wave rose against her. The wind, which had troubled everything on the beach, seemed to lose its force at the level of the water.

She looked back. The rough fronts of the bath-houses were all she could see of the resort. No one stood upon a gallery. She bent forward and let the water take her weight.

At first she struck out as she had always done and put down a foot almost at once. She had moved scarcely the length of her arm. Annoyed with herself, she tried again. This time she kept her face low, stretched her hands before her, and felt the sand slip beyond the reach of her toes. She made one stroke, and then another. For several moments she swam.

She found her footing with a gasp. The distance she had covered was so slight that she could still see the marks her feet had made where she entered. Yet she stood looking at the shore as though it had withdrawn from her. She tried once more and managed a few strokes before her breath failed. Water ran into her mouth. She laughed at that, alone in the sea, and turned back.

In the bath-house she dried herself slowly. There was no one to whom she wished to tell it. If she described what she had done, the few strokes would sound poor enough; and she did not want Robert or Adèle to take the place beside her which neither had occupied in the water. She dressed and carried her wet bathing things home under her arm.

The children woke before supper. Raoul demanded his spade and was disappointed to learn that the sand from his pockets had been swept away. Edna sat with them while they ate, and listened to an account of a quarrel neither could explain. Later she saw to it that they were washed and put to bed. She went in once after the lamp had been turned down. Both were asleep, one with his face against the pillow and the other with an arm flung above his head.

Night had cooled the gallery. Edna sat there alone, hearing the children’s faint breathing through the open window and, farther off, the sea. Léonce’s telegram lay inside the drawer where she had left it. She thought of the small distance she had swum and could no longer have said how far it was. Presently even that slipped from her attention. Robert’s remark remained, in Adèle’s voice, just as she had heard it that afternoon: “Mrs. Pontellier says more when she is silent than most women do in an hour.”

I went to the First National Bank with the number of Donald Willsson’s last check written on the back of an envelope. The bank had stone pillars outside and a brass railing inside. Between them it was a good place to keep money, if you could get it as far as the railing.

I told a clerk what I wanted. He looked at my card, looked at me, and took me to a man named Kearns, who was an assistant cashier. Kearns had a pink, clean-shaven face and cuffs so white that I kept my envelope away from them.

“Mr. Willsson’s check?” he asked.

“Five thousand dollars. Written yesterday, a little before three.”

“Made out to whom?”

“The stub doesn’t say.”

“Have you the check?”

“If I had it, I wouldn’t be asking you where it was.”

He didn’t like that. He put my card on his desk and pressed its corners flat with two fingers.

“You’re employed by the family?”

“Donald Willsson sent for me. Somebody killed him before I could talk to him.”

“That I know. I meant the present arrangement.”

“There isn’t one yet. I’m trying to find out what he wanted me for.”

Kearns looked at the envelope again. He took the number into another room, leaving me with a calendar, three chairs, and the impression that I had asked him for five thousand dollars. He was gone long enough for me to read the calendar through October. When he came back he had a thin book in his hand.

“That check has never been presented here,” he said. “It has not been certified. We have no record of it passing through the bank in any way.”

“Could he have got cash for it somewhere else?”

“He could have handed it to anyone willing to take it.”

“That’s a large amount to take on trust.”

“Yes.” He closed the book. “I suppose it depends on whose check it is.”

“Did he come in yesterday afternoon?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Did anybody?”

“I’ve asked. Nobody remembers seeing him.”

That left the twenty minutes of his absence where they had been. I thanked Kearns. He said he was sorry about Mr. Willsson, and I believed him. He also said he hoped I would recover the check before anybody tried to use it. I believed that too.

Outside, I stood on the bank steps and considered five thousand dollars. It was enough to buy a man’s help, or a woman’s silence, or more trouble than either of them was worth. Donald had written the check before he left the Herald for twenty minutes. He might have carried it with him all night. He might have given it away before supper. The bank could tell me only that it had not come back.

At the Great Western, the clerk called me over before I could get to the elevator.

“A lady asked for you,” he said. “She’s waiting in there.”

He pointed to a room off the lobby where the hotel kept its potted palms and its guests who didn’t want to be seen waiting. Mrs. Willsson sat beyond the nearest palm. She had on a dark dress and black shoes. Her hat hid some of her yellow hair, but not the tired look about her eyes.

“You came to see me,” she said when I stopped in front of her chair.

“I was on my way.”

“You turned back.”

“I had something else to do.”

She glanced at the lobby door.

“We can talk here?”

“We can go up to my room.”

“I prefer this.”

I sat down across from her. The palm stood between us and most of the lobby. It had enough dust on its leaves to hide a regiment.

“Last night,” she said, “you did not tell me who you were.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I knew my husband had sent for a man. I did not know what kind of man.” She folded her gloves in her lap. “His secretary told me you went to his office this morning.”

“She knows what kind of man I am now.”

“What did he want you to do?”

“He died before he could tell me.”

“That is true?”

“It is.”

She studied me for a moment, as if she thought the answer might change if she gave it time.

“Then why do you keep asking questions?”

“He paid my agency. I was supposed to meet him. Somebody made that difficult.”

She lowered her eyes to the gloves.

“Have you spoken to his father?”

“Yes.”

“He told you I killed Donald.”

“He made a strong case for not liking you. That was as far as he got.”

“He has never needed a reason.” She spoke quietly. The accent was more noticeable on the last word. “He hated me when Donald brought me here. He thinks every woman who marries a man with money has come to steal it. He has made his own money very hard to steal.”

“Where did you go last night?”

She looked up. “I told you. I went out.”

“I remember that part.”

For the first time she seemed angry. It put a little colour into her face.

“You were in my house. My husband had failed to come home. I had just seen him lying dead in the street. What answer did you expect?”

“That one would have done.”

“I could not give it then.”

“Why can you give it now?”

“Because the newspapers say a woman was seen beside him. His father has talked to you. Someone else will come to me soon.”

“The police?”

“Perhaps.”

She watched two men cross the lobby. They did not look toward us.

“I received a telephone call while you were waiting,” she said. “You know that.”

“I know you received a call. I don’t know what was said.”

“A woman asked if I wished to find my husband. She told me to go to Hurricane Street, to the eleven-hundred block. She said I should go at once.”

“What woman?”

“I do not know. She would not give a name.”

“Did you recognise the voice?”

“No.”

“What did she say about your husband?”

“Only that he was there.”

“Alive?”

“She did not say.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I did. She hung up.”

I thought about the girl at the Herald listening to Donald make a date for ten o’clock with someone she thought was a woman.

“Did Donald tell you he was meeting anyone at ten?” I asked.

“No. He told you to come to our house. That was all I knew.”

“What time did he leave the house?”

“After dinner. He said he had work at the paper.”

“Did he take anything with him?”

“His coat and hat.”

“An envelope? A check?”

She shook her head, then stopped.

“A check?”

“Five thousand dollars. He wrote it yesterday afternoon. I haven’t found out who got it.”

“I know nothing about that.”

“Was he carrying a check book?”

“He never showed me what he carried in his pockets.”

She said it with a little bite. I let it pass.

“What happened when you got to Hurricane Street?”

“I left the car around the corner. I was afraid of what I might see. I walked to the block she had named. Donald was on the pavement.”

“Was anybody with him?”

“A man.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was bent over Donald. When I came near, he straightened and went away.”

“Walked or ran?”

“Walked at first. Then he ran.”

“Which way?”

“I don’t know. I was looking at Donald.”

“Was the man the one who shot him?”

“How could I know?”

“You might have heard the shots.”

“I heard something while I was looking for a place to leave the car. I thought it was a motor backfiring.” She gripped the gloves. “When I came to him he was dead.”

“Did you touch him?”

“I put my hand under his head. There was blood on the pavement. It got on my shoe.”

“Your left green slipper.”

She looked at me, and her grip on the gloves loosened.

“You saw it.”

“Yes.”

“I cleaned it afterward.”

“That was sensible if you wanted to have a hard time explaining it.”

“I was frightened.”

“I can see why. You were in the street with a dead man, and you left without calling the police.”

“I thought the man might come back. I thought he might be watching me.”

“You didn’t see his face?”

“No.”

“Height?”

“About your height. Perhaps taller.”

“Clothes?”

“A dark coat and a hat.”

That would cover most of the men in Personville after supper. It would cover the man in the newspaper, too, if she had really seen him.

“Did he say anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he have anything in his hands?”

“I don’t remember.”

She took a breath that didn’t seem to help her.

“Will you tell the police?”

“I’ll tell them what I know when it will do some good. Who else knows you went there?”

“No one.”

“The woman on the phone does.”

“Yes.”

“And the man in the street, if there was a man.”

“There was.”

“Did Max Thaler know about it when he came to your house this morning?”

Her face went still. Then she asked how I knew he had been there.

“I saw him go in.”

“He came to ask about Donald,” she said. “I did not send for him.”

“What did he ask?”

“Whether Donald had been with me before he was killed. Whether I had gone out after he left. Questions like yours.”

“Did you answer them like you answered mine?”

“I told him less.”

“Why did he come to you?”

“I do not know.”

“Did your husband know him?”

“He knew who he was. Everybody here knows who he is.”

She got up. I stayed in my chair.

“Mrs. Willsson, I may need to ask you more.”

“You know where I live.”

“Keep the shoes. The green ones.”

“I have kept them.”

She went out through the lobby without hurrying. I watched until the street door closed behind her, then asked the clerk whether anyone had called while I was at the bank. Nobody had. He gave me my key and an envelope that had been left a few minutes earlier.

There was no address on it. A sheet of hotel stationery inside carried one sentence, written in a small, neat hand:

Ask Mrs. Willsson who called me to Mountain Boulevard this morning. Max Thaler.

I read it again. He had got the message to the hotel without showing himself, and somebody had known the widow was sitting there. I asked the clerk who had brought the envelope. A boy, he said. Not one of the hotel boys. He had left it at the desk and gone out.

Upstairs I put the note on the bureau and sat where I could see it. Mrs. Willsson said Thaler had come without being asked. Thaler said somebody had called him. Neither statement told me who had made the call. He might have written the note to make her look like a liar, and she might have been one without his help.

I went out again and took a car down to Hurricane Street. In daylight the eleven-hundred block looked like a place where people lived and put out their rubbish. The alley opposite the spot named in the paper was narrow enough for a man to brace himself against either wall. The two bullet marks in the house front had been circled in chalk. I stood in the alley and looked across. A man firing from there would have had a clear view of Willsson on the pavement. Anybody standing beside Willsson would have had a clear view of the alley, if he had thought to look before the firing began.

The people who had looked out of their windows afterward had seen a man and a woman. Mrs. Willsson supplied the woman. She supplied very little of the man. I tried the distance from the corner where she said she had left her car. It was short. She could have heard six shots from there, even with a motor running. She could also have reached the body before anyone got down from the houses.

I got nothing else out of the block. A woman at a window watched me examine the alley and pulled her shade down when I looked up. I went back to the hotel before dark.

The note was still on the bureau. I took it and walked to a telegraph office. My report to the Old Man read:

DONALD WILLSSON KILLED BEFORE I COULD INTERVIEW HIM. HE WROTE FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. FIRST NATIONAL BANK SAYS CHECK HAS NEVER BEEN PRESENTED OR CERTIFIED. WIDOW ADMITS SHE WAS AT SCENE AFTER SHOOTING. SAYS UNKNOWN WOMAN TELEPHONED HER THERE. THALER HAS SENT MESSAGE CLAIMING SOMEONE CALLED HIM TO WIDOW’S HOUSE THIS MORNING. CONTINUING INVESTIGATION. WILL REPORT.

I paid for the wire, ate supper, and went upstairs.

Night had filled the window of my room. I set the note beside the bank number on the bureau. Thaler wanted me to ask the widow about a call. The widow wanted me to believe she had answered one. Somewhere between the two calls Donald Willsson had gone to Hurricane Street instead of home. I turned out the light and lay alone in the dark, with no better idea where his five-thousand-dollar check had gone.

The description did not reassure me. I closed the book and replaced it on its shelf, but the image of that terrible arching of the body remained before my eyes. The writer allowed for no mistake about the character of the convulsions. He allowed, I noticed with rather less satisfaction, for mistakes about their cause.

At the front door I met Dorcas. She had put on her black dress, although it was scarcely seven o'clock, and her eyes were red.

"Are you going out, sir?"

"Only to the village. Mr. Cavendish knows where I am going."

She nodded, but did not move aside at once.

"I can't believe she's gone, sir. At breakfast yesterday she was telling me how the preserves were to be put away. She'd made a list."

I could find nothing to say to this. Dorcas opened the door for me, and I went down the drive in the early sunshine.

The storm had passed us by. The gravel was dry, and there was a faint haze over the meadows. It seemed impossible that, less than two hours before, I had stood in that dreadful room and watched Mrs. Inglethorp die. I walked quickly, partly from impatience to reach Poirot, partly because I did not care to be alone with my thoughts.

I found him outside the little house where he lodged with his fellow Belgians. He was tending a narrow border with a pair of scissors. At the sight of me he laid them down and came through the gate.

"My friend, I know," he said. "Madame Inglethorp is dead."

I stared at him.

"Who told you?"

"Young Peters, the baker's boy. He brought our bread and the news together. He had heard it from Baily at Dr. Wilkins's gate."

"You know more than I expected, then."

"Only that she is dead, Hastings. The rest you must tell me."

He took me into his sitting-room. It was so neat that I hesitated before setting my hat on a chair. Poirot indicated a place for it and seated himself opposite me. I gave him the events of the night as exactly as I could, beginning with Lawrence waking me and ending with John's consent to his coming. He stopped me twice to make sure which door we had broken and who had unbolted the passage door. Otherwise he listened without a word.

When I came to Mrs. Inglethorp's last cry, his expression altered.

"She said 'Alfred' while she looked at Dr. Bauerstein," he repeated.

"Yes. She had been conscious a moment before. I heard her speak."

"And Mr. Inglethorp was absent?"

"His bed had not been slept in."

Poirot sat for a little while with his fingertips pressed together. Then he rose, brushed an invisible speck from his coat, and took up his hat.

"We will go at once. You have done well to come for me."

I was glad of his approval, though the short walk back did much to cool my confidence. John had given me a free hand at a moment of distress. By the time I returned with a detective, he might regret it. I said something of this to Poirot as we passed the last cottages.

"Then we shall speak to Mr. Cavendish first," he replied. "He has trusted you, and I shall remember it."

We were approaching the gates of Styles when a man came round the bend in the road. His coat was dusty, and he walked with the dragging step of one who has spent a sleepless night. I recognised Alfred Inglethorp before he recognised us.

"Mr. Hastings!" he exclaimed. His eyes passed to Poirot. "Has something happened at the house?"

I told him. For an instant he stood quite still. Then he took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Emily? Dead? You must be mistaken."

"I am afraid there is no mistake. Dr. Wilkins was there."

He asked me how she had died. I gave him the little I could say with certainty. At the mention of her convulsions, he turned his face away.

"I should have been there," he said. "I ought never to have gone out."

"Where have you been all night?" I asked.

"At the Bell, in the village. I walked Dr. Bauerstein as far as his lodgings, then went on alone. I had been so troubled by the disagreement at home that I walked farther than I meant to. When I thought of returning, it was past midnight. I had left my latch-key on the hall table, and I knew the servants would be asleep. The landlord at the Bell gave me a room."

His account came readily enough, though he paused once before speaking of the key. He looked from Poirot to me.

"I must go to the house. John will want to see me."

He set off at a pace that soon carried him ahead of us. Poirot made no comment. I had scarcely heard the rest of Alfred's account after the words about the latch-key. I remembered his taking it from the hall on the previous evening, and telling us not to wait up.

"He had the key," I said.

"So you told me," said Poirot.

"You heard what he said."

"I heard him, Hastings."

That was all I could get from him.

Alfred had reached the house before us. When Dorcas admitted Poirot and me, we heard his voice in the morning-room. John came out a moment later and greeted my friend with grave courtesy.

"I am obliged to you for coming, Monsieur Poirot. Hastings has told you, I suppose, what has happened."

"He has told me what he saw. I am very sorry for your loss, Mr. Cavendish."

John thanked him. He looked worn, but had himself in hand. On learning that the doctors had locked both rooms, Poirot asked whether he might examine Mrs. Inglethorp's. John took the two keys from his pocket and gave him the one he wanted.

"I'll come up with you," he said.

We crossed the hall together. Alfred remained in the morning-room. As we reached the foot of the stairs, Dorcas appeared from the dining-room carrying a tray. She stopped when she saw the key in Poirot's hand.

"Will you be going into the mistress's room, sir?"

"For a short time," said John.

"Then, if you please, don't let Annie put anything straight in there. She was saying the table ought to be set back."

Poirot assured her that nothing would be moved without his seeing it. I asked Dorcas what time she had last seen Alfred before his departure. She looked puzzled.

"Just as he went out, sir. He took the latch-key from its hook. I saw him put it in his waistcoat pocket, for he dropped his gloves and had to pick them up again."

John's face darkened. He asked whether she was certain.

"Quite certain, sir. I was standing by the hall lamp."

She went on with her tray. I glanced at Poirot. He was looking up the staircase, as though he had not heard. John said nothing until we had reached the landing.

"Perhaps he meant another key," he said at last.

"Perhaps," said Poirot.

In the right wing the broken door of Alfred's room had been drawn nearly shut. John unlocked the passage door of Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, and we entered behind him.

Daylight had changed the room. The overturned table, which had seemed an immense disorder in the candlelight, lay on its side beside the bed. A little pool of brandy had dried upon the carpet. The mantelpiece, with its clock and small ornaments, looked as tidy as ever. Poirot halted just within the door and surveyed everything with an attention I found almost painful.

"Show me where you stood when you first came in," he said to John.

John went to the broken connecting door. He pointed out where Lawrence had held the candle, where I had gone to unbolt the passage door, and where he himself had approached the bed. Poirot asked which of the servants had come in after us. John named Annie and Dorcas, so far as he could remember. Mary and Cynthia had remained near the doorway.

"Did anyone touch the table?"

"No one had the chance," said John. "We were all occupied with my mother."

Poirot went to the table, but did not raise it. He studied the legs, the carpet beneath them, and the space between the table and the bed. Then he examined the gas bracket, the window fastenings, and the two doors. He moved slowly, giving each thing its turn. More than once I thought he had found something, only to see him pass on.

John watched for several minutes. At length Poirot turned to him.

"I should like, if you permit it, to stay here a little longer with Hastings. You have much to do downstairs."

John left us the key and went out. Poirot waited until his footsteps had died away before approaching the mantelpiece. He bent over the hearth, straightened an ornament which was scarcely out of line, and stood for some time gazing at the spot on the wall which Lawrence had stared at during the night.

"What is there?" I asked.

"What did you see when you looked here?"

"The ashes. The ornaments. Nothing else."

"That is just what you told me in the village."

He did not seem to be reproaching me. Nevertheless I felt foolish. He next knelt beside the overturned table and, with the point of a pencil, drew something from the narrow space where its fallen edge met the carpet. He held it up to the light. It was a short piece of dark blue ribbon, scarcely two inches long. One end had been tied in a small, tight knot; the other had been cut cleanly.

"Where did that come from?" I asked.

"From where you saw me take it."

He laid it in his open palm for me to examine, then folded it in a piece of clean paper.

"Do you know what it means?"

"Not yet. I want to see it again in good light."

He put the paper in his pocket and returned to the bed. When I asked whether the ribbon had belonged to Mrs. Inglethorp, he shook his head.

"I shall explain nothing about it now, Hastings. I have first to learn what was in this room."

It struck me that examining the room was the way to learn precisely that, but experience had taught me that a dispute with Poirot seldom hastened an answer.

We left by the passage door. Poirot locked it and returned the key to John, whom we found in the hall giving directions about the doctors' visit that evening. Alfred was no longer visible. I hoped Poirot might speak to John about the latch-key, but he asked instead to see the other members of the household.

Mary Cavendish came in from the terrace. She had changed out of her white smock and looked pale and tired. She answered Poirot's few questions about her arrival in the bedroom, telling him that she had heard the noise while trying to wake Cynthia. Lawrence joined us presently. He listened to Mary's account with his eyes on the floor.

When Poirot asked him whether he had noticed anything unusual on entering his stepmother's room, Lawrence said he had noticed nothing at all. I remembered his ghastly face and his fixed gaze at the wall, but Poirot did not press him. The two brothers were plainly bearing the morning in different ways. John wanted to know what must be done next; Lawrence seemed anxious that nothing more should be said.

Cynthia came down shortly afterwards, looking younger than usual and rather ashamed of her disordered appearance in the bedroom. Poirot rose when she entered. He put only one question to her.

"Did you wake at any time in the night before Mrs. Cavendish shook you?"

"No, Monsieur Poirot. I remember going to bed, and after that I remember Mrs. Cavendish calling my name. I heard nothing between."

"Thank you, mademoiselle."

She looked relieved that he required no more of her. I could understand her embarrassment. She was accustomed to the hospital's exact hours, and it must have been unsettling to learn that she had slept through such a commotion on the other side of her door.

For the next hour Poirot occupied himself with small matters. He went from the hall to the terrace and back again, studying the doors and asking John where they led. He spoke briefly to Annie about the brandy. She had fetched it from the dining-room as instructed and could tell him no more. The house had settled into the strained quiet which follows a death. Servants crossed the passages softly; whenever I entered a room, the conversation within it stopped.

A little before eleven, Poirot asked John for the bedroom key once more. John handed it over without comment. We went upstairs alone.

"Why return?" I asked. "You looked at everything."

"Did I?"

"You looked for the best part of an hour."

"That is different."

He unlocked the door and let me pass in front of him. After entering he turned the key again, leaving it in the lock. The clock on the mantelpiece had stopped. Outside the windows, a gardener was at work on the far lawn, and the ordinary sound of his tools made the silence within the room seem deeper.

Poirot went directly to the place where the table lay. He did not kneel this time. He drew the folded paper from his pocket and opened it upon the bedside chest, setting the little length of blue ribbon between us. In the full morning light I could see a slight crease beside the knot. I could see no reason for his interest in it.

"You said you would explain," I reminded him.

"I said I wanted to see it again in good light."

He held the ribbon by its cut end and examined the knot. Then he laid it down with the same care he might have given a valuable jewel. His face had become very grave.

"The wrong end was left behind, Hastings."

The cab took us down the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Brett had her eyes closed, but she was not asleep. Her hand lay on the seat between us. I watched the light go across it as we passed the lamps.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To the Parc Montsouris."

"Whatever for?"

"You told me to drive around."

"I didn't say to drive out of Paris."

"It's still Paris."

"I know a place I'd rather go. Tell him Les Halles."

I leaned forward and told the driver. He said something I could not hear through the glass. I opened it and told him again. He turned at the next street.

"Is there anything to do at Les Halles?" I asked.

"Look at things. Have a drink."

"You can do that anywhere."

"Then it won't matter where we go."

She sat up and looked out of the window. The streets were quieter now. A bus went by with no one in it but the driver and a man asleep against the back window. We passed a café where the chairs had been piled on the tables. A waiter was sweeping the pavement under the awning.

"I'm sorry I brought those boys," Brett said.

"You didn't bring them for me."

"No. Still, I knew you'd be there."

"You couldn't have known."

"Braddocks told me about the dancing."

"That explains it."

"It doesn't explain anything."

The driver had to stop for a cart. We waited while the horse drew it across the street. There were empty baskets piled high on the cart, and a man walking beside the horse held the load steady with one hand.

"I met a man last week," Brett said. "Count Mippipopolous."

"Who is he?"

"He's got a great deal of money."

"I've never heard of him."

"Why should you have? He's very nice. He sent flowers to the hotel and then came to find out if I'd got them."

"That seems thorough."

"He was quite serious about the flowers. He told the porter exactly how many there ought to be."

"Did the porter count them?"

"I expect he did."

She watched the cart go. The driver started again, and the change of speed moved us together. Brett shifted back into her corner.

"He says he'll take me to dinner tomorrow."

"Where?"

"I don't know yet."

"Then he's not so thorough."

"Don't be dull, Jake."

"I wasn't trying to be."

"You never have to try."

She said it without anger. I looked out at a row of dark shop windows. In one there was a lamp left burning over a display of luggage. The suitcases looked solid and expensive behind the glass.

"You're cold," I said.

"Not a bit."

"You could take my coat."

"I have my own."

"It isn't much of a coat."

"It will do."

I wanted her to stay with me. I did not say anything more about the coat.

The taxi crossed the river and went up through streets where there were more people about. Near Les Halles we came upon carts drawn up at the curb, and men carrying crates from one cart to another. The driver went as far as he could and stopped behind a wagon loaded with cabbages.

"This is close enough," Brett said.

I paid him and we got out. The air smelled of wet wood and vegetables. There were bits of crushed green leaves underfoot. Men wheeled barrows past us, calling out before they reached us, though there was room enough to pass. The lamps under the market roofs were bright. Beyond them the street was dark.

"Now you see why I wanted to come," Brett said.

"I see the cabbages."

"They're good cabbages."

"They ought to be. There are enough of them."

We walked beside the wagons. There were baskets of strawberries and long rows of lettuces, with water shining on the leaves. A woman in a black dress stood over a heap of asparagus and argued with a man who was unloading it. She held one bunch by its string and shook it at him. He went on taking bunches from the crate.

Brett stopped to watch them. The woman turned and looked at us, then went back to her argument. Brett laughed and we walked on.

"She's right," Brett said.

"You didn't hear what he said."

"That has nothing to do with it."

We found a café open at the edge of the market. Men in aprons were drinking coffee at the counter. There were two small tables at the back, and we sat at one of them. The waiter brought a cloth and wiped the table. Brett ordered coffee. I ordered a brandy.

"I thought you'd given up getting tight," I said.

"I have."

"You've been very firm about it."

"I've been firm all evening. Look at me."

I looked at her. Under the hard light of the café she seemed tired. Her hair had come loose a little at one side, and she put it back with her hand.

"You look fine."

"I know how I look."

The coffee came in thick cups. Brett held hers in both hands. At the counter one of the men put down his cup and went out. Another took his place. The waiter knew them and had the coffee ready before they asked for it.

"I used to come here after the hospital," Brett said. "There was a girl who knew all the cafés. We would finish late and she'd bring me along. We never had money for anything but coffee."

"Do you know which café it was?"

"No. It may have gone. They all looked better to me then."

"This one isn't bad."

"No. I like it here."

She drank her coffee. Outside, a horse stamped and the sound came through the open door. The waiter set my brandy down and took the empty cups from the counter.

"We ought to go back," I said.

"To the dance?"

"I left something there."

"Your money."

"I should see if they still have it."

"They will have it."

"I'd like to see."

"All right. We can go."

We finished our drinks and walked back toward the taxis. The wagons had closed up the street we had come by. We had to go around them, past piles of wicker baskets and a man washing mud from the pavement with a hose. The water carried leaves into the gutter. At the stand I gave the address of the bal to a driver, and Brett got in ahead of me.

On the way back she leaned forward to see a clock above a jeweller's shop.

"It's later than I thought."

"Do you have to be anywhere?"

"Not yet."

"The count may be waiting outside your hotel."

"He's not that thorough."

She smiled, and then looked away. I could see her face in the dark window when we passed a lighted shop. It was easier to watch her there. At the Boulevard Saint-Michel a group of students came out of a doorway, singing. One of them took hold of the taxi door as we slowed for traffic, and the driver shouted at him. He let go and bowed to Brett through the window.

"There's a chap who could use a count's money," I said.

"Most of us could."

"You've got a dinner out of it."

"I haven't had it yet."

The taxi stopped in the steep street below the bal. We could hear the accordion before we reached the door. The policeman was gone. Inside it was still hot, though fewer people were dancing. The proprietor sat up on his stool with the bells on his ankle and played while he looked over the heads of the dancers. His daughter was gathering empty glasses.

The patronne saw me at once.

"Ah, Monsieur. You have come back."

"Did the girl ask for me?"

"No, Monsieur. She has been dancing."

"May I have the envelope?"

She went behind the bar and took it from a shelf beside the bottles. It was still sealed. I put it in my pocket.

"Thank you."

"She is there," the patronne said, and pointed with her chin.

Georgette was near the far wall. She had her hat on again. When the music stopped, the man she had been dancing with said something to her and walked toward the bar. She saw me and came over.

"So you've come back," she said.

"For a little while."

"You went away."

"Yes."

"I saw that."

Brett stood beside me. Georgette looked at her, then back at me.

"I left word with the patronne," I said.

"She had nothing to tell me."

"I thought you might ask."

"Why would I ask for you? I saw you go out."

"Did you?"

"You were with this lady."

"Yes."

Georgette took off her hat and put it on again. She had been dancing a long time and her hair was damp at the temples.

"The dinner was good," she said.

"I'm glad."

"The dancing is less good. They all want to talk."

"Are you going home?"

"Presently. There is time."

Brett had moved away to let two dancers pass. Georgette watched her.

"Your friends are strange," she said.

"Some of them."

"Those men danced with me and laughed. I know when people laugh."

"You needn't stay."

"I know that, too."

The proprietor began another tune. The man who had brought Georgette from the floor came back and waited a little way off. She looked at him and then at me.

"Good night, Jacob."

"Good night, Georgette."

She went to dance with him. Brett was at the door, getting some air. I stopped to pay for two drinks, although we had had none, and the daughter told me there was nothing to pay. Outside, Brett was standing by the wall.

"Did you get your fifty francs?"

"Yes."

"She seems to know you quite well."

"She knows my name."

"You gave her a good dinner."

"That helped."

Brett looked up the empty street. A taxi passed at the bottom without slowing. We walked down to the boulevard. There were fewer lights on now, and the first carts were beginning to go the other way. At the corner a man was taking down the shutters from a bakery. He set each one against the wall and went back inside for the next.

"Would you like to go somewhere?" I asked.

"We've been somewhere."

"We could get another drink."

"I don't want one."

"We could walk."

"I'd like that."

We went toward the river. The pavement was cool after the bal. Brett walked with her hands in the pockets of her coat. Once she stopped to look at a window full of hats. There was one small black hat set apart from the others, with a narrow white band.

"That's dreadful," she said.

"You stopped to look at it."

"I wanted to be certain."

She walked on. At the bridge the wind came up from the water. A tug moved slowly under us with no load behind it. We waited until it had passed through the light from the lamps along the quay. Then it went on into the dark.

"I ought to go back," Brett said.

"I'll find you a taxi."

"There will be one by the next bridge."

We followed the river. The sky above the roofs had begun to grow pale, but the lamps were still burning. A street cleaner worked along the curb, pushing water ahead of his broom. He drew it around our feet without looking up. Brett thanked him and he nodded.

At the next bridge a taxi stood outside a café. The driver was drinking at the counter. I went in and asked if he was free. He put down his glass and came out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Brett gave him the address of her hotel. He opened the door for her.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yes."

"After my dinner, perhaps."

"If you're not too tired."

"I shan't be tired."

She got in. I closed the door and the driver walked around to his seat. Brett lowered the window.

"Good night, Jake."

"Good night, Brett."

The taxi pulled away. I watched it cross the bridge and turn out of sight. Then I went on along the river. It was dawn, and I was alone.

In the outer office Eve discovered that the rain had stopped. It had stopped so completely, and the pavement was shining in so innocent a manner, that anyone who had not seen the morning’s performance might have supposed it incapable of such conduct. She looked at the umbrella in her hand.

There are obligations which decent people cannot escape. Somewhere in Dover Street was a young man who had gone out into the rain without a hat in order that she might go about her business dry. The least she could do was restore his property before another shower caught him.

At the Drones Club she found a porter in a vestibule decorated with the heads of animals which had, so far as Eve could judge, offered little resistance.

“A gentleman came out of here this morning and lent me this umbrella,” she said. “Would you give it back to him?”

The porter inspected the umbrella. His manner changed.

“Certainly, miss.”

“I don’t know his name. He was very tall and wore a monocle.”

“That would be Mr. Psmith, miss.”

Eve considered this information, and let it pass. She could not imagine what use she might have for it.

“Could I leave him a note?”

The porter produced a sheet of club paper and stood aside while she wrote.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for lending me your umbrella. I have brought it back before the weather has had a chance to make you sorry you did.

The girl from the coal shop.

She folded the paper. The porter took it with the umbrella and placed both behind his desk.

“And your name, miss?” he asked, with the air of a man completing a necessary entry in a ledger.

“Eve Halliday.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Eve went out. The porter looked after her, then looked at the umbrella. He knew the umbrella well. For three years he had listened to the Honourable Mr. Walderwick asking after it whenever he had left it in a cab, which was frequently. He placed it where Mr. Walderwick was unlikely to see it and resumed his duties with the thoughtful expression of a man who has done his best.

* * * * *

Psmith’s visit to the Ada Clarkson International Employment Bureau had yielded no immediate prospect of employment. Miss Clarkson had been kind, but she had been firm. At present, she explained, her clients wanted secretaries who knew shorthand, gardeners who knew gardens, and cooks who knew how to cook. Psmith possessed none of these qualifications. He suggested that a client might want a secretary to whom shorthand was a closed book, but Miss Clarkson had searched her records without finding one.

He returned to the Drones shortly after one o’clock in a mood of quiet reflection. He had scarcely ordered lunch when the Honourable Mr. Walderwick came into the smoking-room.

Mr. Walderwick was a young man with a round face and an anxious respect for his own possessions. He approached Psmith’s chair.

“I say,” he said, “did you take my umbrella this morning?”

Psmith lowered the paper he had been reading.

“Umbrella?”

“My umbrella. The one with the silver band on the handle.”

“A handsome object,” said Psmith. “I congratulate you.”

“That’s all very well, but did you take it?”

Psmith regarded him with grave interest. It was clear to him that an account of the morning’s events, if given in full, would demand more from Mr. Walderwick than he was equipped to give. He would have to picture a young woman under a coal merchant’s awning, accept the proposition that she required rescue, and agree that an umbrella was the proper instrument of it. There was also the awkward matter of whose umbrella it had been.

“How much did it cost you?” asked Psmith.

“What?”

“The umbrella.”

“Two pounds fifteen. Why?”

“I will give you forty pounds for it.”

Mr. Walderwick stared. Psmith’s face offered no help.

“Forty pounds?”

“Cash,” said Psmith. “The price includes the silver band.”

“You can buy one exactly like it for two pounds fifteen.”

“I dare say. But this is the one under discussion.”

Mr. Walderwick sat down without having intended to. He looked at Psmith, then at the mantelpiece, as though hoping it might contain someone prepared to explain matters. It did not.

“Are you serious?”

“Entirely.”

“Then I suppose you can have it.”

Psmith wrote a cheque. Mr. Walderwick read it twice before putting it away.

“It’s downstairs with the porter,” he said. “A girl brought it back. Who was she?”

“A question,” said Psmith, “which I regret I cannot answer.”

“She must have borrowed it from you.”

“That is one possible account of its movements.”

Mr. Walderwick gave up. He had acquired forty pounds, and the experience had left him too unsettled to enjoy them.

Psmith finished his lunch. On his way out he told the porter that he was now the owner of Mr. Walderwick’s umbrella and would collect it that evening. The porter, who had been trying to decide how to introduce the subject of the note, said, “Very good, sir.” By the time he remembered the folded sheet in his desk, Psmith had gone.

* * * * *

At half-past two Eve was shown into a room at the hotel where Lord Emsworth was staying. She had spent part of the walk there composing answers to sensible questions about books. The rest of the time she had spent wondering whether the sensible answers she had composed contained any truth.

Lord Emsworth rose from a table covered with papers. He was a tall, elderly man whose pale eyes gave the impression that he had been expecting someone else and would be pleased if she could say who it was.

“Miss Halliday?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Ah. The library.” He consulted a letter. “You are to catalogue it.”

“If you decide to engage me.”

“Yes, yes. Sit down, my dear.”

Eve sat. Lord Emsworth sat opposite her and searched the table.

“My secretary sent me a list,” he said. “Baxter. Very methodical fellow. Thought you ought to see what had been done already.”

He drew a paper from beneath a book and examined it through his pince-nez. Eve waited while he turned it over.

“This appears to be a bill,” he said. “Extra marmalade. Extraordinary.”

He put it aside and searched again. At length he found a packet of closely written sheets.

“Here it is. Baxter says the books are in dreadful confusion. I’m afraid they are. My father bought a great many of them, and I don’t believe anyone has touched some of the shelves since.”

“That’s why a catalogue would help,” said Eve.

“Precisely.” Lord Emsworth brightened. “You would know where everything was.”

“I should hope to.”

“I never do,” said Lord Emsworth. “There was a book on delphiniums I wanted last autumn. I went in three times. Baxter found me there on the third day and asked if I was looking for something.”

He spoke as though this had been an unreasonable question. Eve assured him that she would pay particular attention to books on delphiniums.

“No, no, I didn’t mean you should start with those. There may not be any. The book I wanted turned out to be in my bedroom.”

He handed her Baxter’s sheets. The first page listed a collection of travel books. The second contained instructions in a smaller, sharper hand.

“Mr. Baxter has asked for a record of the editions and the condition of each volume,” she said. “May I make notes on this?”

“Certainly.”

She took a pencil from her bag and bent over the list. The bird of Paradise feather, which had survived the rain without injury, swept past the edge of Lord Emsworth’s table. Its tip caught the neck of a small bottle of ink. The bottle fell upon Baxter’s sheets.

For a moment neither moved. Black ink spread through the travel books, reached the smaller writing, and continued towards the hotel bill.

“Oh!” said Eve. “I am so sorry.”

She snatched up the pages. This distributed the ink over her fingers and the table, without much improving the pages. Lord Emsworth found a handkerchief and gave it to her. When she laid one sheet upon it, the handkerchief became black too.

“Baxter made this for you,” she said. “I’ve ruined it.”

Lord Emsworth peered at the damage. Baxter’s instructions had disappeared beneath a broad stain. Several titles could still be read at the edges.

“Yes,” he said. “I expect you have.”

“I can copy what’s left. And I could make a fresh list when I get to the library.”

“You could?” His face cleared. “That would be capital.”

“I ought to pay for the ink on the table.”

“It will come off, I expect. Or they can send me a bill. They seem quite ready to do that.”

Eve tried to smile. She had hoped to leave the interview with an appointment. She had not expected to leave it with black hands and an account for hotel furniture.

“There is one more thing,” she said. “I have never catalogued a collection as large as yours. I should have told you that at once.”

“How large is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.” Lord Emsworth considered her. “Can you read Baxter’s writing when it hasn’t got ink on it?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think you will do very well. Come down to Blandings as arranged. Baxter will show you the library.”

He rose. The interview was over.

At the door Eve turned back. “I really am sorry about his list.”

“Don’t distress yourself, my dear. He will make another.”

Lord Emsworth looked at the stained pages after she had gone. Baxter would make another. The certainty of this was perhaps the least comforting feature of the whole affair.

* * * * *

By four o’clock the sun had come out with an assurance which showed how little it remembered of the morning. Eve had taken a turn through the streets before going home, partly to dry her gloves and partly to recover from her interview. The gloves were past recovery. Her spirits improved.

Near a bookseller’s window she stopped to inspect a volume displayed among the new novels. A voice beside her said:

“An encouraging title.”

She turned. The tall young man with the monocle was looking at the book, which was called *Life’s Rich Rewards*.

“You!” said Eve.

He removed his hat.

“You do me an honour,” he said. “It is agreeable to be recognised in so large a city.”

“You gave me an umbrella this morning.”

Psmith looked at her with polite concern.

“Did I?”

“Outside the coal shop in Dover Street. You came across from the club.”

“The coal trade,” said Psmith, “is one with which I have had little to do.”

“I know it was you.”

“I can see how a mistake might arise. Tall young men with monocles are apt to resemble one another.”

“There can’t be so many of them who hand umbrellas to strangers and run away.”

“That would narrow the field,” Psmith admitted.

Eve laughed. He had the same grave face that had looked down at her under the awning, and she could no more persuade him to acknowledge it than she could persuade the shop window to give up its books.

“Well, whoever he was, I took the umbrella back. You may tell him so if you meet him.”

“I shall bear it in mind.”

“I left a note, too.”

“A thoughtful act.”

“He had no hat. He must have got soaked.”

“Perhaps he was quick on his feet.”

“He was.”

Psmith moved his attention to her gloves. The tips were marked with ink.

“Have you been in combat with a pen?”

“With an ink bottle. The bottle won.”

She told him about Baxter’s list, though she did not name either Baxter or the household to which she was going. Psmith listened without interrupting.

“And after all that,” she said, “he gave me the job. I think he had forgotten what happened by the time I left.”

“A valuable quality in an employer. I have spent much of the day seeking one.”

“You’re looking for work?”

“Yes. This morning I visited an employment bureau. The lady in charge could find no opening for a man whose chief qualification was a willingness to begin at once.”

“What sort of work do you want?”

“I am keeping my mind open. She asked whether I knew shorthand. I said I had seen it written.”

“That won’t get you far.”

“So the lady suggested.”

Eve looked at him more closely. She had judged from his clothes and his manner that work was something which occupied other people in his presence. It occurred to her that she knew very little about him.

“Did the bureau offer you anything at all?”

“Advice. In generous quantities.”

“It’s a pity advice can’t be sold.”

“I should be prepared to accept a fair price for mine.”

A motor-car came between them and the street. When it had passed, Eve glanced at the time.

“I must go. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Psmith.

She took a few steps, then looked back.

“You still won’t admit it?”

“Admit what?”

Eve shook her head and went on. Psmith watched her turn the corner. Then he took the opposite direction, walking at a pace quite unlike the one with which he had crossed Dover Street that morning.

* * * * *

Evening found Psmith alone in the Drones smoking-room. The windows stood open to the warm air, and the coal shop across the street had closed. Its awning was rolled up. Without Eve beneath it, the premises of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe had recovered their usual appearance.

The porter came in carrying an umbrella.

“Your umbrella, sir,” he said. “I understand you bought it from Mr. Walderwick.”

“I did. Bring it here, please.”

The porter laid it beside Psmith’s chair.

“There was a note as well, sir. The young lady left it when she brought the umbrella back. I ought to have given it to you earlier.”

He handed over the folded paper.

“The young lady?” said Psmith.

“Yes, sir. Miss Eve Halliday. She gave me her name when she left it.”

“Miss Eve Halliday,” repeated Psmith.

The porter went out. Psmith opened the note and read it. Then he folded it again and sat looking at the umbrella, which had cost him forty pounds and was now, beyond dispute, his own.

Lady Russell came to Kellynch the next morning with a paper in her hand. She had passed a wakeful night over it, and had made her figures with that scrupulous hope which belongs to a person who has been asked for advice by friends whom she loves. Mr Shepherd, arriving soon afterwards with a much larger paper, found Sir Walter and Elizabeth prepared to hear him, Lady Russell prepared to hear everybody, and Anne seated a little apart, with no paper at all.

Sir Walter had desired that the business might be settled before dinner. A whole morning was more than he liked to give to so disagreeable a subject, but a whole morning, he thought, ought surely to be enough for it. Mr Shepherd, who knew how long he had already been trying to obtain half an hour, made no observation.

Lady Russell was invited to begin. She proposed that the spring visit to London should be given up for one year; that fewer large dinners should be given at Kellynch; and that the second carriage, which was now seldom wanted except to spare the first, should be kept without its own pair of horses. She had found, too, that several orders for the house might be put off, and that the household accounts, if brought to Elizabeth every month, would show where lesser savings could be made.

She spoke with great delicacy. There was nothing in her manner to suggest that the family had been living otherwise than they ought. She knew that Sir Walter would find it easier to listen to an economy which appeared to be chosen than to one which had been forced upon him.

"A year at home," said she, "would make a considerable difference, and would give you time to judge what farther alteration may be wanted."

Sir Walter had heard her through with a composure which gave her some hope.

"My dear Lady Russell, it is impossible."

She waited, supposing him to mean that one part of it was impossible.

"We cannot give up London. Elizabeth must be seen. As for dinners, I should be ashamed to let our neighbours suppose that a gentleman's table was governed by his tradesmen. The horses have been bought; and to maintain a carriage without horses for it would be an absurdity."

"The second carriage might still be used when occasion required," said Lady Russell.

"By borrowing the horses from the first? I would rather sell it."

This was uttered with the air of naming a calamity so great that no one could expect him to examine it. Lady Russell saw that her whole plan had been rejected, and folded her paper. Elizabeth had listened without offering either encouragement or objection. She did not like losing London; she liked still less the thought of finding herself obliged to say why they had lost it.

Mr Shepherd now laid his own account before Sir Walter. It was written out in columns, with the expenses of the preceding year set against a proposed allowance for the next. His plan kept the usual journey to town, though it shortened their stay. It allowed dinners, but fewer guests; retained both carriages, but called for a reduction in the stables; and dismissed two servants whose duties, as he had taken pains to ascertain, could be shared among those remaining. A fixed sum was to be paid towards the outstanding bills every quarter. For all this to succeed, no fresh purchases could be made without an account of their cost.

"I have considered what your present establishment requires, Sir Walter," he said. "These are the reductions I can recommend while you maintain it."

"Then, Shepherd, you recommend too much."

Mr Shepherd looked at his columns. "The sums are moderate, Sir Walter."

"The sums may be moderate. The suggestions are not. I cannot have a house in which the servants must ask one another to do their work, or a stable reduced till every journey becomes a calculation. What is a visit to London if we must count the weeks of it? I reject the plan."

Mr Shepherd had expected objections to his figures. He had brought details to support every one of them, and was rather at a loss when no detail was called for. Lady Russell, who had believed his proposals more likely to be accepted than her own, looked with concern at Anne.

Sir Walter pushed the account away. "There must be some other arrangement."

"There may be other arrangements to consider," said Mr Shepherd, "but the bills already owing cannot wait upon them."

"Then the people must be made to understand our circumstances."

"They understand them sufficiently to ask for payment."

A silence followed this answer. Mr Shepherd had spoken with his ordinary respect, but his ordinary respect could not make the fact agreeable. Sir Walter took up a letter which lay beside him, glanced at the direction without reading it, and set it down again.

Anne had attended to both papers. Lady Russell's figures had seemed to her too hopeful, and Mr Shepherd's too dependent on restraint being practised by people who had never yet found it possible. She disliked speaking where she was so little accustomed to be heard; but the two plans were dismissed, the debts remained, and she could not bear that their friends should be sent away to invent a third set of figures for the same reception.

"If we are to remain here," she said, "I think we must spend much less than either plan proposes."

Every eye turned towards her. Even Sir Walter, who had been about to open the letter, left it untouched.

"We should give up London altogether for the present," Anne continued. "There should be no large dinners, and only one carriage and the horses necessary for it. We should close the rooms we do not use, reduce the servants to the number the occupied part of the house requires, and make no purchases except what is needed for its care. If an account were kept of every expense, and a sum put aside for the debts before anything else was paid, we should at least know whether it is possible to go on at Kellynch."

Lady Russell had often wished Anne to speak more for herself. She could not enjoy seeing her obliged to speak on this subject.

"Impossible," said Sir Walter. "Quite impossible. You would have us live in three rooms, with a servant to each of them, and draw up an account every time a candle is lighted."

Anne did not dispute his description. "I do not know that even these changes would be enough. Mr Shepherd could tell us when the accounts had been made."

"Anne is right," said Elizabeth.

Lady Russell raised her head. Mr Shepherd, who had begun to replace his papers in their cover, stopped. Sir Walter looked at his eldest daughter with frank surprise.

"You cannot mean the whole of it, my dear."

"I mean that there is no use in agreeing to a saving which leaves the bills unpaid. I would give up London, and the dinners, and the second carriage. If we must make an alteration, it ought to answer some purpose."

It had cost Elizabeth something to say this. She had imagined, while Anne spoke, a year without the pleasant certainty of being expected in town, and a house in which the closing of rooms would be known to every visitor. But she had also seen the accounts in Mr Shepherd's hand, and had heard enough of the demands which they represented. She could not endure the thought of repeated consultations, each ending in an assurance that nothing must change. Anne's proposal was severe; its severity was the first part of it which Elizabeth had been able to understand.

Lady Russell expressed her approval. Mr Shepherd said that such a reduction, faithfully carried out, would deserve to be reckoned. Sir Walter would have been less offended if they had all spoken against it.

"I am astonished at you, Elizabeth. Anne has had little experience of what our position demands, but you know better. Would you receive the Dalrymples in a house with half its rooms shut up?"

"We do not receive them every day, sir."

"We may receive them any day. That is the distinction you forget."

Elizabeth coloured. She knew the distinction very well, and had valued it all her life; but she answered, "Then we could open the rooms when they came."

Sir Walter gave a short laugh. "And summon the servants back, I suppose, to wait in them. No. I shall do no such thing. I will not shut up my house to save it."

Anne said no more. She had expected his refusal, but Elizabeth's support had made it possible, for a moment, to hope that he would consider the proposal. Elizabeth herself was silent now. She had gone farther than she meant to go, and could not be certain whether she regretted it.

Mr Shepherd put away his account. He had little faith in any reduction made at Sir Walter's direction after this morning, and he had undertaken to tell him what means remained.

"There is one course, Sir Walter, which would preserve the house and the estate without a sale, and provide an income from the house while you chose to live elsewhere. If a suitable tenant could be found for Kellynch Hall—"

"A tenant?" Sir Walter rose. "Mr Shepherd, I will not have that word spoken again in my presence."

"I ask your pardon, sir. I thought it my duty to mention the possibility."

"Your duty is done. Kellynch Hall is my home. I have no intention of handing it over to a stranger."

Mr Shepherd bowed. There was nothing to be gained by explaining the terms he had had in mind. Sir Walter remained standing, and Lady Russell, seeing that the conversation could proceed no farther, rose too. It wanted some time yet to dinner, but Sir Walter had been right in one respect: the whole morning had been enough for him.

He became more courteous as soon as the papers were out of sight. He hoped Lady Russell would stay. She had meant to do so, and would not leave Anne to bear alone the disagreeable remains of the consultation. Mr Shepherd accepted Sir Walter's invitation to dine, though he would have preferred to take his account home and revise it in peace.

They had scarcely moved into the drawing-room when a servant brought in a letter from Uppercross. It was addressed to Anne in Mary's hand. Sir Walter remarked that Mary wrote a remarkably uneven line for a woman who had had every advantage in her education; Elizabeth wished to know if anything had happened; and Anne, opening the letter, found an urgent request to come.

"My dear Anne," it began, "I have been extremely unwell since yesterday, though I dare say nobody here thinks it worth noticing. I had a bad night, and have such a pain in my head that I can scarcely bear the noise downstairs. Charles says I shall be better if I go out, which shows how little he understands my complaint. If you can come to Uppercross at once, you will do me more good than anybody else. I hope you will not wait till I am worse before you take it seriously. Yours affectionately, Mary."

There was more in the same strain, including an account of what Mary had not eaten at breakfast and of what she had been pressed to eat instead. Anne read it through before telling them that her sister was indisposed and wished for her.

"Is Charles there?" asked Lady Russell.

"He was there this morning. Mary does not say that he intends to leave home."

"Then I suppose there can be no danger," said Sir Walter. "Mary has inherited a very unfortunate habit of discovering symptoms when she has nothing to occupy her."

Elizabeth asked whether the letter gave any particular account of the illness. Anne repeated what she could. She did not think Mary dangerously ill, but she knew that a little attendance would comfort her, and that Mary's complaints were seldom shortened by being contradicted.

"I ought to go to her," she said.

"You may go to-morrow if she continues so," said Sir Walter. "I cannot have another arrangement to make this afternoon."

"There need be none made for you, sir. I can send a note to say I shall come to-morrow."

Sir Walter was satisfied. Elizabeth observed that Mary had chosen an unfortunate time to be ill, an observation which Anne could not dispute. Lady Russell offered to have her carriage take Anne to Uppercross in the morning. It was settled between them in a few words, while Mr Shepherd stood at the window and looked out upon the grounds whose owner had that day refused every means proposed for meeting their cost.

At dinner Sir Walter made an effort to be cheerful. He spoke of the neighbours, of the weather, and of a recent change in the dress of a gentleman he had met in town. No one was willing to bring the accounts back to the table. Lady Russell and Mr Shepherd both knew that they must be brought back soon; Elizabeth knew it too, and found less pleasure than usual in directing the meal. Anne was attentive to their guests, but her thoughts returned often to Mary's letter. She could already hear its complaints spoken aloud, with fresh particulars added to each one.

Mr Shepherd left before evening. Sir Walter thanked him for his trouble with a dignity which suggested that the trouble had been chiefly his own. Lady Russell remained a little longer, and spoke privately to Anne of Uppercross. She hoped Mary would be better; she was glad Anne would go. Of the morning's business she said only that Anne had spoken sensibly, and that she must not be discouraged. Anne was grateful to her, though she could discover no reason for encouragement in anything that had followed.

When Lady Russell had gone, Elizabeth came to Anne as she was writing her reply to Mary.

"You need not tell her about any of this," she said.

"No. It would only alarm her."

"She would tell Charles, and then it would be discussed at Uppercross. I shall speak to my father again when he is in a better humour."

Anne looked up. She had not expected Elizabeth to renew the subject.

"If he will hear you, it may help."

"I do not say that I like your plan," Elizabeth replied. "I dislike every part of it. But I dislike these bills coming here still more."

Anne promised to say nothing to Mary, and Elizabeth went away. Her support had been real; Anne could see, too, how hard it would be for her to give up the life she had managed at Kellynch for thirteen years. She finished the letter, promising Mary that she would be with her the next day.

By evening Anne was alone. The house had grown quiet, but she heard a door closed somewhere beyond the rooms in use and thought of her proposal to shut them. In the morning she would go to Uppercross, where Mary would want her to listen, to sit with her, and perhaps to agree that she had been neglected. Anne was resolved to go. The accounts lay with Mr Shepherd, the bills had yet to be paid, and no one at Kellynch had agreed what was to be done.

Mr. Franklin’s seven-and-sixpence had been owing to me since he was a boy of twelve. He had borrowed it to buy a fishing-rod, and had lost the rod before he caught a fish. I reminded him of this, as soon as I had got my breath back, and he promised to pay me when we reached the house. Young gentlemen who have lived on the Continent may forget the way we shake hands in England. I was glad to find that Mr. Franklin had not forgotten his debts.

“How did you come here, sir?” I asked. “We looked for you by the evening train.”

“I came by an earlier one,” says he. “My luggage is following from the station. I took a carriage as far as Cobb’s Hole, and walked the rest of the way because they told me I should find you out here.”

“Who told you that?”

“A girl I met at the turn of the lane. She gave me your name and pointed towards the bay. I suppose it was the girl who has just gone away?”

“That was Rosanna Spearman, our second housemaid,” I said. “She was late for dinner, and I came to fetch her in. You have frightened her away instead.”

“She looked frightened when she saw me,” says Mr. Franklin. “Have I grown so alarming in my absence?”

I told him that Rosanna had been out of spirits, and asked no more of her just then. A girl’s blush is easily accounted for by those who are not required to account for it. Mr. Franklin helped me on my legs, taking hold of my arm as if I had been a piece of furniture which the tide was in danger of carrying off. Once upright, I pointed my stick towards the plantation.

“If you have come four hours before your time to visit me,” I said, “you have chosen an ugly place for the meeting.”

“I came early because of a letter I received in London this morning,” says he. “You shall see it before we go indoors.”

He took a letter from his pocket-book and gave it to me. There was a wind coming off the sea, and I had to hold the paper down against my coat with both hands. The letter was from Mr. Bruff, our family lawyer. Here it is, as Mr. Bruff has since furnished it to me for this statement.

“Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Wednesday, May 24th, 1848.

“My dear Mr. Blake,

“A person unknown to my clerks called at my office this afternoon and asked by what train you intended to leave London for Lady Verinder’s house. He would give no name and no reason for the inquiry. My clerks told him nothing.

“I cannot say whether he knew anything of the charge you have undertaken. Nevertheless, the question was put with enough particularity to make a change in your arrangements advisable. Take the first convenient train tomorrow, in place of the train by which you had proposed to travel. Keep the small packet in your own possession on the journey. When you reach the house, you may, if you think proper, place it for the night in Betteredge’s charge. Lady Verinder has always spoken to me of him as a man to be trusted.

“I beg you to attach no certainty to my suspicions, and to alarm nobody on their account. We shall be better able to judge of the matter when I have made further inquiries.

“Yours faithfully, Matthew Bruff.”

“There,” says Mr. Franklin, when I had finished. “It came with my breakfast. I caught the morning train, and here I am.”

Now I have known lawyers, in the course of my long life, to take fright at things which would not have disturbed a hen on her nest. I have also known Mr. Bruff. He is a man who does not spend a stamp merely for the pleasure of seeing it pasted on an envelope. I folded the letter carefully and gave it back.

“What is the charge he speaks of?” I asked.

Mr. Franklin put the letter into his pocket-book.

“That is a question I am not free to answer yet, Betteredge.”

“Then I won’t ask it again, sir. But there has been another question asked on this day, and I must tell you of it before you go into the house.”

I gave him Penelope’s account of the three Indians, their little English boy, the ink in the boy’s hand, and the answer he had made while they were on the terrace that morning. I told it as my daughter had told it to me. When I came to the boy’s words, “He has got It about him,” Mr. Franklin stopped walking.

“Did he say I should come today?”

“He said the English gentleman would travel to this house today. Penelope asked whether he would arrive at the close of day, and could get no answer. How could the child know that you were coming? We had never seen him before.”

Mr. Franklin looked across the bay, though there was nothing there to answer him but the sea.

“I believe I know what they meant by ‘It,’” he said. “They meant the Moonstone.”

This was the first time I had heard the name from his lips. I knew the old family story, as most people connected with my lady’s house knew it. That did not make me admire the company in which the name had appeared again. I asked Mr. Franklin whether Mr. Bruff’s visitor and Penelope’s performers might have had the same purpose.

“I can’t tell,” he said. “Bruff can’t tell either, or he would have written a different letter. Did the men see Penelope watching them?”

“She thinks not.”

“Ask her to keep the story to herself for the present. I shall speak to your mistress, when there is something certain to be said.”

You may wonder why I did not demand to know whether the thing in Mr. Franklin’s pocket was the thing in the boy’s answer. I wondered it myself afterwards. At the time, Mr. Bruff’s letter was in my mind, with its plain request that nobody should be alarmed on a suspicion. Mr. Franklin had told me all he meant to tell me. I had the choice of taking his word and going on, or making a quarrel of it among the sandhills. At my age, a man likes a level path home.

We went through the plantation together. Mr. Franklin questioned me about my lady’s health, about the house, and about Penelope, whom he remembered as a child. I was answering him on that last point when my stick struck a fir-root and nearly laid me flat. He caught me by the elbow.

“You see how we go on here, sir,” I said. “The young people save the old ones from the trees, and the old ones keep the young people out of trouble, when the young people permit it.”

“I shall permit you a great deal,” says he.

“That is easily promised on the first day of a visit.”

At the end of the plantation we met Penelope. She had a shawl over her head, and was coming along at a pace which meant that somebody else had failed to do what she wanted. She looked first at Mr. Franklin, made him her curtsey, and then turned to me.

“I went after Rosanna, father. She hasn’t come back to the house. I met her where the path divides, and she told me she was going on to Cobb’s Hole.”

“Did you ask what for?”

“She said she wanted to see her friend there. I told her they had kept her dinner. She thanked me and went on.”

“Was she ill?”

“She looked tired. She wouldn’t let me walk with her.”

Penelope said this quietly, but I knew my daughter well enough to see that she was troubled. She was kind to Rosanna, though the two were never intimate, and she had heard from me often enough that a fainting fit in the morning was no good preparation for missing a dinner. Mr. Franklin asked whether someone ought to go after her.

“She knows the road, sir,” I said. “And the woman she goes to see knows her. I shall speak to Rosanna when she comes in.”

Penelope carried Mr. Franklin’s first greeting to the servants, and went ahead to see whether the luggage had arrived. I waited until she was beyond hearing.

“You may trust my daughter with what you have heard,” I said. “She won’t tell the kitchen a story merely because the kitchen has ears.”

“I don’t doubt her,” says Mr. Franklin. “I asked for quiet because I want to learn who made that inquiry at Bruff’s office. If the two matters belong together, talk will reach the people concerned soon enough without our help.”

We came round to the back of the house. The carriage from the station had not arrived, and my lady was still out. Miss Rachel, who had gone with her, was spending the remainder of the afternoon with the friends who had entertained them at luncheon. Mr. Franklin had time to make himself presentable before either of them saw him. I offered to take him to his room.

“One thing first,” says he, stopping me at the back door. “Bruff has advised me to put a small packet in your charge for tonight. Will you keep it under lock?”

“I keep my lady’s plate under lock, sir. I can keep a packet along with it.”

He drew it from an inside pocket and put it into my hand. It was wrapped in brown paper and secured with a seal. It took no more room than the palm of my hand. I observed these particulars because I had to know what I was receiving. I did not turn it over to inspect the writing on it, and I did not ask what lay inside.

“There must be no mistake about the time,” says Mr. Franklin. “I shall want it back tomorrow morning.”

“You shall have it when you ask me for it, sir.”

“Will you lock it away now?”

I thought that particular, considering that he had carried it safely from London. But Mr. Bruff had named me in his letter, and there stood Mr. Franklin waiting to see the advice followed. I took him through the passage to the plate-room. The room has a stout door, and the drawer in which I put away small things has a lock of its own. Mr. Franklin saw me lay the packet in the drawer. I locked the drawer and then locked the door. Both keys went on the ring which I carry in my waistcoat pocket.

“There,” I said. “If any stranger asks by what train the plate-room is travelling, nobody in this house can tell him.”

Mr. Franklin laughed, though not for long. He thanked me, and went upstairs to wash the sand from his shoes. I went to my own sitting-room for the dinner I had neglected while fetching Rosanna’s. It was mutton, as I had promised her. It had suffered from waiting, and so had I. Between the two of us, I believe the mutton had the better excuse.

Before I had done, my lady returned. I heard her speaking in the hall and went out to meet her. She was surprised to learn that Mr. Franklin had arrived, and more surprised to learn that he had come across the sands to find me. I told her he was upstairs, and that he had brought a letter which had changed his travelling plans.

“Is anything wrong, Betteredge?” she asked.

“Nothing that Mr. Bruff can prove wrong, my lady.”

That was an answer after a lawyer’s own heart, and it gave my lady very little comfort. She asked whether I had seen the letter. I said that I had. She would have questioned me further, but Mr. Franklin came down at that moment, looking as if his journey had been a pleasure from beginning to end. My lady went to him with both hands held out.

“I am glad to see you, Franklin,” she said. “You should have sent word that you were coming earlier.”

“I had scarcely time to send word to myself, aunt,” says he. “Bruff’s letter arrived this morning.”

He offered to tell her what was in it. She took his arm and led him into her morning-room, leaving the door open. I remained in the hall, where I had business with the carrier who had just brought Mr. Franklin’s luggage. A carrier with two portmanteaus is a business of several minutes. I heard no more than the sound of their voices until my lady spoke distinctly enough for the words to reach me.

“There is one subject I forbid under my roof,” she said. “You know I mean my brother John Herncastle. I will not have his name made a topic of conversation here.”

“You have my word, aunt,” says Mr. Franklin. “I shall not discuss John Herncastle in your house.”

I moved away with the carrier then. My lady’s meaning was plain, and Mr. Franklin had accepted it. If I had stood still to hear what followed, I should have been doing the very thing I have blamed in other servants for fifty years. When I next saw them, they were talking of his travels, and my lady was asking whether he intended to spend the whole of his visit with us. He said he did, provided we could put up with him. She told him we should try.

The rest of the afternoon gave us no sign of Rosanna. Penelope put by a plate for her, and Nancy made a face at the trouble of doing it. I made Nancy take the face back to the kitchen. By supper-time the plate had been warmed once and cooled twice. Penelope asked whether I meant to send to Cobb’s Hole.

“If she is with her friend, she is safe,” I said. “She told you where she was going. Give her a little time.”

I spoke with more confidence than I felt. Rosanna had sat beside me that day and called the quicksand her grave. A man may dismiss such words when the speaker is in front of him, within reach of a good dinner and a sensible answer. They return when the speaker is out of sight. I had laughed at her empty stomach. I could not laugh at the empty place beside the servants’ table.

At nine o’clock I went to the back door and looked across the yard. There was light enough in the sky to see the path by the firs, and no one on it. I went indoors, satisfied myself that the plate-room door was locked, and felt for the two keys in my waistcoat pocket. They were where I had put them. What lay in the sealed packet was no business of mine that night, however often Mr. Bruff’s letter and Penelope’s story invited me to make it so.

Late that evening I settled into my beehive chair with Robinson Crusoe on my knee. The sealed packet was locked away in the plate-room, Mr. Franklin was under my lady’s roof, and Rosanna had still not come back into the house.

When Mary awoke, the rain was no longer streaming down the carriage window. There were drops upon it still, and beyond them she could see a row of lamps shining through mist. The train was going slowly, with a great deal of creaking and jolting, and Mrs. Medlock was pulling on her gloves.

"Here's our station," she said. "You'd best wake up properly and mind your things."

Mary had very few things to mind. She straightened her crêpe hat, which had slipped over one ear, and followed Mrs. Medlock onto the platform. It was cold there. She had thought England cold even in London, but this was a different cold, which seemed to come up through the stones under her feet as well as down out of the air.

There were only two or three people at the station. A porter was wheeling a trunk away, and a man stood beneath a lamp some distance from him. He was so still that Mary noticed him before she noticed anyone else. When he came toward them she saw that he was thin and dark, and that one shoulder stood higher than the other.

Mrs. Medlock stopped short.

"Why, sir!" she said. "I didn't look to find you here."

"The carriage is waiting," the man answered.

His voice was low, and he seemed to have used it because there was something which had to be said. Then he looked at Mary. His eyes were dark also, and they rested on her for a moment without changing their expression.

"This is Miss Mary," said Mrs. Medlock. "Miss Mary Lennox."

Mary knew who he was before Mrs. Medlock spoke his name. She had wondered what a hunchback would look like and had expected something more extraordinary. His back was crooked, but his face was not in the least like a face in a fairy story. It was a tired, stern face, and she did not care to have it looking at her.

Mr. Archibald Craven gave the slightest nod.

"Come," he said.

Mary went after him because Mrs. Medlock went, and because she did not know where else to go. She felt cross at being looked at and scarcely spoken to, though she had made up her mind on the train that she would not wish to speak to him herself. By the time they reached the carriage she had decided that Basil had been right about his being horrid.

The carriage had lamps on either side of it, and a large horse stood steaming in the damp air. Mrs. Medlock helped Mary inside and climbed in after her. Mr. Craven took the seat opposite them. His knees were not very far from Mary's, but he might have been in another carriage, so little notice did he take of her. He drew his coat about him and turned his face toward the dark window.

At first they drove past a few houses with yellow light in their windows. Then the houses were gone. Mary could see the carriage lamps shining on wet stones at the edge of the road, and sometimes a bare tree showed itself for an instant and disappeared behind them.

"We'll be on the moor directly," Mrs. Medlock said.

Mary looked out more carefully. She still did not know what a moor was. She had fancied it might be a sort of wide field, but when the carriage left the last trees behind, there was no field to be seen. There was only darkness on both sides of the road, with low black shapes which rose and fell as they drove past.

"It looks as if there were nothing there," she said.

"There's plenty there," Mrs. Medlock answered. "You'd see it in daylight."

Mary thought this was a foolish answer, as it was not daylight. The wind blew against the carriage, and a little rain struck the glass. It was difficult to believe that a place so empty and dark could belong to anybody, even to a man who had a house with nearly a hundred rooms.

They had driven some way when the horse gave a sudden sideways movement and the carriage stopped. There was a cry from the coachman and a small clatter of hooves on the road. Mr. Craven leaned forward, but did not speak.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Medlock, putting her head out.

"Sheep, ma'am," the coachman called down. "They've got across us. Bide a bit while I shift 'em."

Mary heard him climb down. Something moved outside the carriage, quite near the wheels, and made a rough, complaining noise. The horse tossed its head, so that the harness jingled.

Mrs. Medlock settled herself back upon the seat. "They've no business on the road at this hour," she said.

Mary could see nothing from where she sat. She had been shut up in the train all day, and the carriage seemed smaller than it had a moment before. While Mrs. Medlock was looking out of her own window, Mary opened the door on her side and stepped down.

"Miss Mary!" Mrs. Medlock exclaimed.

But Mary was already standing on the road. She had only meant to look at the sheep. Instead she found herself looking into the dark, for they had moved beyond the carriage lamps. The wind caught her thin black skirt and pressed it against her legs. The ground at the side of the road was soft and uneven, and when she took one step upon it, her shoe sank into wet grass.

There was no wall or house or tree near her. She could hear the coachman speaking to the sheep and the sheep moving away from him, but the sounds seemed small in so much open space. Above her the clouds were parting. Through a narrow break she saw two or three stars, bright and very far off.

She had never stood in a place like it. In India there had always been walls about the bungalow, and trees, and people somewhere within calling distance. Even in the deserted house where the men had found her, she had known where the rooms ended. Here she could not tell where anything ended.

"Come back at once," Mrs. Medlock called. "You'll be wet through."

Mary turned. The carriage lamps showed Mrs. Medlock's bonnet at the open door and, behind its trembling purple flowers, Mr. Craven's pale face. He was looking past her at the road.

She climbed in without answering. Her shoe had left a dark mark upon the step, and Mrs. Medlock looked at it with annoyance.

"You'll catch your death going out like that," she said. "There was nothing to see."

"I saw the stars," Mary answered.

Mrs. Medlock looked surprised, as if the stars were the last things she would have expected Mary to take an interest in. She shut the door firmly. Presently the coachman climbed back to his seat, the horse started, and they drove on.

Mary kept her face toward the window. She could see her own faint reflection in it, and behind that only the darkness. She wondered whether the moor looked just as lonely in the daytime. She would not ask Mrs. Medlock, who was sure to tell her that she would see for herself, and she would certainly not ask Mr. Craven. He had not spoken since they left the station.

After a long while the carriage slowed. They passed between great stone pillars, and the wheels made a different sound upon the ground. Mary saw the front of a house appear ahead of them. Its windows were set high above the carriage, and only a few had lights in them. Those lights made the unlighted parts seem larger.

A door was opened before they had quite stopped. Mrs. Medlock got out first and told Mary to follow. Mr. Craven came after them, but by the time Mary had crossed the threshold he had gone ahead into the house.

The hall was so large that their footsteps sounded loud in it. There was a fire burning at one end, though it did not seem able to warm the whole place, and there were pictures upon the walls. Mary saw men in dark clothes and women with stiff white collars looking down at her as she passed. She thought they looked as if they had never been pleased by anything. Perhaps, if people lived in a house like this long enough, they all became like that.

Mr. Craven stopped beside a broad staircase.

"See that she has what she needs," he said to Mrs. Medlock.

"Yes, sir."

He went away through a doorway, and Mary heard his steps retreating along another passage. He had not wished her good night. She had not expected him to do it, but she watched the doorway after he had gone.

"Come along," said Mrs. Medlock. "It's late, and you'll want your supper."

They went up the staircase and through passages which turned so often that Mary soon ceased to know which way the front of the house lay. Mrs. Medlock carried a candle, though there were lamps at intervals, and its flame bent whenever they passed a closed door. Mary remembered the hundred rooms, nearly all of them shut up and locked. She tried to count the doors they passed, but lost the number.

At last Mrs. Medlock opened one and led her into a room where a fire had been lit. There was a bed with heavy curtains, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and an armchair covered in faded red stuff. A small fire screen stood before the hearth. Everything was clean and ready for her, but it looked as though no one had thought of the room except to make it ready.

"This is where you'll sleep," Mrs. Medlock said. "Your trunk will be brought up. There's hot water, and somebody will bring your supper. You'd best eat it before you go to bed."

Mary walked to the window. It was too dark to see what lay below it, and the glass was cold when she put her fingers against it.

"May I go wherever I like in the morning?" she asked.

"You may go where you're told you may go," said Mrs. Medlock. "I'll show you the way down to breakfast. Don't go roaming about the house alone."

Mary turned from the window. "I said I shouldn't want to."

"Then we shall get on very well."

Mrs. Medlock put the candle on the table and went out. Mary heard her steps for a little way, and then a door shut somewhere in the passage. She was alone, but it was not the sort of being alone she had known in the bungalow. People were in this house. She had seen lights and heard voices below. The strange part of it was that none of those people had anything to do with her.

She took off her hat and gloves and laid them on the bed. Her hair had been flattened by the hat, and she tried to smooth it with her hands. She was hungry, though she had been too cross and sleepy in the train to know it.

A knock came at the door. Before she could answer, a manservant entered carrying a tray. He was a square man with grizzled hair and a broad face. He set the tray on the table near the fire and looked at Mary with an interest which he made no attempt to hide.

"Tha'll be fair clemmed after yon journey," he said. "There's broth here, an' a bit o' fowl. Mrs. Medlock says tha mun eat it while it's warm."

Mary stared at him. She caught the words "broth" and "Mrs. Medlock," but could make little of the rest.

"I cannot understand what you say," she told him.

The manservant's broad face broke into a smile. "Nay, I reckon tha can't," he said, which did not help her.

"I don't know what you mean," said Mary more sharply.

He pointed to the bowl, and then to his mouth, and Mary felt insulted. She knew perfectly well what one did with supper. She turned her back on him and sat down at the table. The manservant seemed to find this amusing too, but he only put a spoon beside her hand and went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

Mary tasted the broth. It was hot and good, and she ate nearly all of it before she remembered that she had meant to be offended. There was cold fowl and bread and a little dish of baked apples. She ate some of those as well. When Mrs. Medlock returned, she found Mary looking into the empty bowl.

"John says you couldn't understand him," she said. "He's lived here all his life, and you'll get used to his talk."

"He might have spoken plainly," Mary answered.

"He thought he was." Mrs. Medlock looked at the tray. "You've made a fair supper of it, at any rate."

She helped Mary find her nightdress in the trunk, which had been brought up and left inside the door. Mary washed and undressed while Mrs. Medlock took away the tray. When she came back, she drew the bed curtains partway and told Mary where the bell was if she should need anything in the night.

"I shall not need anything," said Mary.

"Then go to sleep."

Mrs. Medlock lowered the lamp, leaving the fire to throw moving shadows upon the walls. Mary got into bed. The sheets were cold at first, but the blankets were thick, and she soon grew warm beneath them.

Mrs. Medlock had gone as far as the door when a sound came from somewhere beyond the room. It began as a low scrape, so faint that Mary thought she might have imagined it. Then came three small knocks, close together, and after them a longer sound which seemed to pass along the passage and die away.

"What was that?" Mary asked.

Mrs. Medlock stood still with her hand on the door. "What was what?"

"That noise. It came from the house."

"It's the wind," said Mrs. Medlock. "You'll hear plenty of it here. It gets into every corner when it blows off the moor."

She shut the door before Mary could say that she had heard the wind all evening and that it had not sounded like that. For a while Mary watched the firelight move across the ceiling. Then the fire sank, the room grew dark, and she lay listening. The sound did not come again. She was still awake when she decided that she would find out for herself what it had been.

Some nights after that walk with my wife, I sat late at my writing-table. The window was open, for the day had been close and the air of the room still held its heat. My papers on the development of moral ideas lay before me, with a paragraph half written; but I had spent the better part of an hour listening to the occasional movement of a train beyond the dark fields. At last I put down my pen and went to the window.

The sky was clear over Ottershaw, though a low bank of cloud lay in the west. As I stood there I saw a streak of greenish light appear high above the trees. It crossed the sky with extraordinary speed and brightness, broadening as it fell, and vanished behind the dark line of the hills towards Chertsey. For an instant the trunks and branches nearest me stood out plainly. Then the night was dark again.

I waited, with my hands upon the sill. A faint sound came after the light, a dull concussion rather than an explosion, and presently the dogs began barking at several points across the country. My wife called from the bedroom to ask what had happened. I told her I had seen a falling star, and she came to the window beside me. There was nothing more to see. The stars shone with their accustomed steadiness, and one by one the dogs grew quiet.

I remember telling her that the meteor must have been unusually large to give so much light. We spoke of the distance at which it might have fallen, though neither of us had any means of judging it. I supposed it had gone down somewhere in the open country beyond the river. My wife was tired, and soon returned to bed. I remained at the window a little longer, looking towards the place where it had disappeared. There was no glow upon the horizon, and no sound of voices or alarm. Presently I shut the window and went back to my unfinished paragraph.

In the morning the affair had already become a matter of local talk. A boy bringing bread told us that something had fallen near an old gravel pit between Ottershaw and Chertsey, and that people were going to look at it. He had not seen it himself. According to one account it was a stone as big as a cottage; according to another it had set the pit on fire. He delivered these reports with the composure of one who expected to know more before dinner.

I was curious enough to leave my work at once. My wife, who had seen the light upon the trees, would not hear of my going without her, and we set out together after breakfast. It was a bright morning. The road had dried hard after some rain earlier in the week, and the hedges were dusty, though water still stood in the deeper ruts and hollows. We met a succession of people coming from the direction of the pit. Each had a little more to say than the last, but their accounts agreed upon one point: there was a great hot thing lying in the water.

The pit was reached by a narrow track across a field. Its farther end had long been flooded, and reeds had established themselves in the shallows. When we came over the low rise above it, I saw a number of people standing in a broken line along the bank. Below them, in the brown water, lay the object that had fallen from the sky.

At first I could make little of its shape. It was partly sunk in the mud and half covered by water. The exposed portion was dark, with patches of a dull grey colour, and at its lower edge the water boiled and stirred. White steam rose from it in thin, changing columns. The thing had struck near the middle of the flooded ground, driving up a ridge of wet gravel before it, and had come to rest with one end higher than the other. From where I stood it might have been a huge rounded stone, though its sides seemed strangely even.

There was less destruction about it than I had expected. A few reeds lay flattened, and the bank nearest the object was splashed with mud. The water had taken much of the force of its descent. Little bubbles came up at intervals along one side, broke upon the surface, and were lost among the reflections of the sky. Every now and then the steam thickened, concealing the upper part from view.

Ogilvy was among the people at the edge. He had taken off his coat and was holding it over one arm. His boots were muddy to the ankles. When he saw me he came forward with a quickness that reminded me of our night in the observatory.

“There it is,” he said. “We have been fortunate to find it at all. Another twenty yards and it would have buried itself in the soft ground.”

He greeted my wife and led us to a place where the bank was firm. Two men who had been cutting across the field early that morning had first noticed the steam. By then, Ogilvy said, the water immediately about the object had been hot enough to prevent their approaching it. It was cooling now, though he judged that its interior might retain heat for days.

“You are sure it is what fell last night?” I asked.

“What else should it be?”

I told him how I had seen the streak of light. He listened closely to my account of its direction, and asked me twice about the interval before I heard the sound. When I described the greenish glare, he nodded with evident satisfaction.

“An ordinary meteorite,” he said. “An unusually large one, of course. The water has saved it from breaking up altogether.”

The word “ordinary” seemed ill suited to the enormous mass before us. I said so, and pointed out the regularity of the visible side. A pale band showed through the steam where the grey surface met the darker end. It ran almost straight for several feet.

“That is a trick of the light and the water,” said Ogilvy. “You cannot tell its form while half of it is hidden. Meteoric iron sometimes shows the most surprising faces when it fractures.”

“But this face does not appear fractured.”

He looked at me sharply, then turned back towards the pit.

“You saw a luminous body fall,” he said. “You heard its impact. Here is a body hot from its passage through the air, lying where your observation places it. What other account do you propose?”

I had none to offer him. Yet as I looked again, the impression of a worked surface persisted. The upper part was rounded, but it seemed to keep the same curve beneath the scaly patches and the stains left by the water. I asked whether a meteorite of that size ought not to have made a greater disturbance.

“It has gone into water and mud,” he answered. “Had it fallen on the road, you would have found your disturbance readily enough.”

He spoke with some impatience. A stout man beside us, who had heard the latter part of our dispute, began to describe a noise which had shaken the dishes in his house near Chertsey. Another declared that he had slept through it. Ogilvy questioned them both, but got little from either account.

My wife had gone a few steps farther along the bank. She called us to look at a shallow runnel by which water from the pit drained towards the lower field. It was warm to the touch. A little vapour hung above it where the sun caught the shaded ground. She dipped her fingers in again, as if unwilling to trust the first sensation, and I did the same. The warmth was unmistakable.

“I should have thought it would cool more quickly in so much water,” she said.

Ogilvy explained that the greater part of the mass lay below the surface and must still be giving out heat. He picked up a stone and threw it into the pit a little beyond the object. It fell with a splash that made several people start. For a moment the ripples gave us a clearer view of the exposed side. I saw what looked like a broad circular end, darkened by heat and mud; then the water settled and steam drifted across it again.

The news had brought people from both sides of the neighbourhood. Some remained above on the track, reluctant to spoil their shoes; others pressed down to the wet gravel. A labourer from a nearby field told us that the pit was deeper than it appeared, and warned a pair of boys away from its crumbling edge. They waited until his back was turned before moving forward again. One of them had a length of willow with which he tried to reach the warm water. He could not get near the object itself.

It is curious how soon the extraordinary becomes a thing to be managed by the habits of an ordinary morning. A man asked who owned the pit. Another wanted to know whether the stone could be sold. A woman who had brought a small child held him up to see over the shoulders before her, and complained that the steam hid everything. No one seemed much disposed to connect this lump in the water with the distant planet at which so many telescopes had been pointed. I myself thought of our vigil with Ogilvy, but the thought had no hold upon me. The journey across that enormous vacancy remained beyond anything I could truly imagine. Here were mud, warm water, reeds, and the smell of wet gravel.

Ogilvy found a broken pole near the workings and began to sound the ground beside the object. The first thrust went into soft mud. He tried again from another place and touched something hard below the water. His face changed, and for a few minutes he gave his whole attention to finding the buried outline. I watched the pole tremble against the unseen side.

“It is larger than I took it for,” he said at last. “The lower end goes some way under the gravel.”

“Is it of the same width throughout?” I asked.

“How can I say? The pole slips upon it.”

He laid the pole down and wiped his hands. He wished to bring a longer one and, if possible, measure the thing properly when it had cooled. He spoke also of sending a message to an acquaintance who knew something of meteoric stones. I could see that my doubts about its shape annoyed him, though he made a point of answering them whenever I raised them.

Meanwhile the sun climbed higher. The steam had grown thinner, except where it escaped from beneath the high end in little puffs. More of the surface was visible now, and its grey patches seemed less like stone than like a coating cracked and discoloured by heat. I noticed a narrow dark mark crossing one of them. It could have been a line in the substance itself or merely a streak of mud. Ogilvy said it proved nothing. I agreed with him, but continued to look at it.

A man in a light waistcoat, whom I had seen speaking loudly to the others, made his way down to the water. He said it was nonsense to stand at a distance when the thing had been there all night. Someone told him the water was still warm. He laughed, tested a dry stone with his boot, and stepped from it onto the ridge of gravel thrown up by the fall.

The people nearest him called out, some to encourage him and some to draw him back. He leaned over the exposed end and put his hand flat upon it. Almost at once he cried out and snatched his hand away. He scrambled back so hastily that he slipped to one knee in the muddy water.

We helped him up the bank. The skin across his palm and the tips of two fingers had reddened, and a blister was already rising near the thumb. My wife gave him her handkerchief to wrap about it. He held his hand away from his body and looked at it with an expression of injured surprise, as though the object had deceived him. A boy ran towards the nearest houses for water and a clean cloth. The man said several times that he had scarcely touched it.

This small accident made a greater impression upon the crowd than the fall itself. Those at the front drew back, leaving a strip of empty ground along the pit, and people who had arrived too late to see what happened received accounts in which the man had laid his hand upon the surface for some time. Ogilvy examined the burn briefly, then looked with renewed interest at the object. He said its surface might still be dangerously hot in places, even where the water had cooled it elsewhere. No one attempted to go down again.

My wife was troubled by the sight of the injured hand. She stayed with the man until the boy returned, and helped bind it. By then the sun was nearly overhead, and people were coming along the track in little groups, asking where they could get the best view. Several had brought their dinners. The bank was becoming crowded enough that those behind leaned upon those in front, and twice the labourer warned them that the edge would give way if they kept pressing upon it.

I suggested to my wife that she should go home. She wished at first to remain until we had heard what Ogilvy made of the object, but he was still occupied with his pole and had said he could learn little more while it lay so hot in the water. I reminded her that we had been out all morning, and that there was no reason for both of us to stand in the sun among the increasing crowd. At length she consented.

I went with her as far as the track across the field. She gave me a last look, half amused at my determination to stay, and asked me not to come home with my own hand wrapped in a handkerchief. Then she turned towards Ottershaw. I watched until the hedge hid her from me, and went back to the pit. It was about noon. People were still arriving from the road, and from the water below them a thin thread of steam rose into the bright, quiet air.

Dr. Seward’s Diary. (Kept in phonograph.)

28 May.—Quincey’s dinner was last night. I had meant to record it on coming home, but found that I could say nothing about it which would not have been false through omission. This morning I can at least set down what happened.

Before I left the asylum yesterday, I went through the wards. Renfield was sitting with a newspaper folded upon his knee. I had passed his chair without speaking when he said, quite distinctly, “Is Miss Westenra to be married, sir?”

I asked how he came to know her name. He opened the paper at a paragraph announcing the engagement and laid his finger upon it. There was nothing remarkable in his having read it, yet I was vexed to find my private affairs entering the ward by so ordinary a door. I told him that the announcement was correct. He looked at me for a moment and asked for another paper. That was the whole interview. I must take care that my surprise at a patient’s question does not tempt me to make a mystery of his answer.

Quincey received us in his rooms with the table already laid and an excellent dinner awaiting us. Arthur was late by some minutes, and came in looking as though he had walked the whole distance for the pleasure of arriving sooner. His messages were chiefly from Lucy. She had made him promise to tell us that she valued our friendship, and that she hoped neither of us would keep away from her house. Quincey said, “That is a message a man may carry with his head up,” and Arthur took his hand. He took mine also.

At dinner we spoke of journeys we had made together, and Quincey gave a history of a lost boot which made Arthur laugh until he could scarcely finish his wine. Then Arthur told us that he and Lucy hoped to be married in September, if their families could arrange all that must be arranged. He said “Lucy and I” several times. Each time he seemed newly pleased with the sound of it.

When we stood up to go, Quincey poured three small glasses and asked us to drink to her happiness. I had feared the toast. It was easier to join in it than to hear him propose it, for his voice was steady and he looked straight at Arthur. I believe we each understood what the evening had cost the other two. Arthur, who understood it best, said very little as we parted.

Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Miss Lucy Westenra.

28 May.

My dearest Lucy,—

I have discharged your commission, though Jack and Quincey will tell you I did it badly. I could remember the sense of every word you sent, but when I saw them both before me I could only say that you wished to see them soon and meant it. They took the message as it was intended. Quincey has asked us to dine with him when you can spare an evening, and Jack says he will come.

I want you to know how good they were to me. We talked and laughed much as we used to do, except that whenever I spoke of you I could see them listening with a kindness I had done nothing to earn. You told me they would wish us well. I knew you were right, but I am glad to have heard them say it.

I called at your house on my way home, though I knew the hour was too late. There was a light in the room upstairs, and I stayed long enough to wish you good-night from the pavement. I shall say it properly to-morrow.

Your own, ARTHUR.

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

31 May.

My dearest Mina,—

Arthur says that I must not thank him for going to Quincey’s dinner, because he enjoyed himself. I think he did, and I am glad of it. It troubled me to suppose that, for the sake of my happiness, three friends might find it difficult to be together. They have managed it with more generosity than I had a right to expect.

Mamma has begun to speak of September as though it were a room which must be put in order before we enter it. She has a little book full of names and another full of sums. Whenever I see her open either of them I try to escape, but Arthur generally stays and helps her. He has even discovered that two of his aunts cannot sit near one another at dinner. I had never noticed this, though I have met them both. There is already more learning in being engaged than I had supposed.

Now I must ask about you. Your last letter spoke of school and your shorthand, and said almost nothing of yourself. Have you heard from Jonathan again? You told me that he expected to be home soon. I had thought, by this time, to have a letter describing your first meeting. If you have written one and it has gone astray, write another, for I want to know every particular.

Your loving LUCY.

Mina Murray’s Journal. (Written in shorthand.)

7 June.—Lucy’s letter came while I was at my lessons, and I carried it in my pocket until the children had gone. I had no news to give her in return. I have looked again at Jonathan’s last few lines. He said he was well and should return in about a week. The week ended long ago.

Mr. Hawkins has been very kind. He sent to ask whether I had heard, and when I told him I had not, he said that business abroad commonly takes longer than a traveller expects. He has written to an address at Bistritz where Jonathan stopped on his outward journey. He offered to show me the answer as soon as it came. I was ashamed to find how much comfort I took from hearing that a letter had been sent, though it has yet to go there and come back.

I answered Lucy before supper. I told her that I was practising and that Mr. Hawkins expected news shortly. Both statements are true. I did not tell her how often I have gone to the window at the hour when the second post is due. She has her happy arrangements to make, and can do nothing by waiting with me.

Dr. Seward’s Diary. (Kept in phonograph.)

14 June.—Renfield occupied me for nearly an hour to-day. His attention was good until I mentioned the date, when he appeared to lose the thread of our talk. He then asked whether I had attended Quincey’s dinner. I had not spoken of it to him. On inquiry I found that one of the attendants had been present when I gave instructions about leaving early that evening. I wish the men would remember that a patient may hear them even when he seems intent upon something else.

Renfield’s question brought back the dinner more clearly than I liked. Arthur called yesterday with a note from Lucy inviting me to take tea. I have accepted for Thursday. She was honest with me when honesty must have been painful, and I will not make her pay for it by refusing her friendship.

There is some improvement in my work. I can spend a whole morning at it without measuring each hour by what might have happened had she answered differently. That is little enough, but I record it since my entries of last month gave such a poor account of me.

Mina Murray’s Journal. (Written in shorthand.)

20 June.—There has been no answer for Mr. Hawkins, and he is going to telegraph. I sat with him for a few minutes this afternoon while he considered the wording. He was careful to ask only for information which a stranger could give. I thought of all the questions I should have put, and saw that most of them belonged to Jonathan alone.

At school I made two mistakes in the copy I had set for the older girls. One of them found the errors and brought the page to me. I thanked her and corrected it. It is strange how easily the duties of a day go on when one is waiting for something that may alter all the days after it.

Letter, Herr Emil Fodor to Miss Mina Murray.

The Golden Krone, Bistritz. 22 June.

Dear Madam,—

Mr. Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, has telegraphed to this house concerning Mr. Jonathan Harker and has given me your address. I am sorry that I cannot send you a date for Mr. Harker’s return, but I can tell you what is known here.

Mr. Harker stayed at the Golden Krone at the beginning of May. He went on to his business in the interior, leaving instructions for any letters addressed to him here to be held until he called for them or sent a further direction. A communication bearing his name, received this month, informed us that he had been delayed and that we should continue to hold his post. It gave no address at which a reply could reach him.

Mr. Hawkins asks whether Mr. Harker is now at this house. He is not. If he returns here, I shall tell him at once that you and Mr. Hawkins are anxious for news and shall ask him to write directly. I regret that I cannot give you more certain information, Madam. Travellers sometimes change their plans without advising an hotel at which they stayed only a night, and I have no means of learning where Mr. Harker is at present.

I remain, dear Madam, Your obedient servant, EMIL FODOR.

Mina Murray’s Journal. (Written in shorthand.)

25 June.—Mr. Fodor’s letter arrived this morning. Mr. Hawkins sent it to me as soon as he had read it, with a note saying that the delay might still be no more than a matter of business. I read the letter twice before I noticed that I was holding his note in my other hand.

I am glad to have word that Jonathan made his journey and was able to send a communication this month. Mr. Fodor says nothing of illness or accident. Yet he cannot say where Jonathan is. He knows only that the post must be kept for him, and I find myself returning to that one small instruction as though it could tell me when he will come home.

I wrote to Mr. Fodor to thank him and asked him to telegraph if Jonathan appeared at his house. Then I wrote to Lucy. I copied out the substance of the letter and said that the news had relieved me. It has relieved me of one fear. I shall be happier when I can tell her that I have heard from Jonathan himself.

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

28 June.

My dearest Mina,—

I am glad that the gentleman at Bistritz wrote, and I wish with all my heart that he had been able to give you an address. Arthur says Mr. Hawkins has done the sensible thing in telegraphing there. Arthur is very good at seeing what may be done at once. When I told him you had been waiting, he wanted to send inquiries in every direction. I said he must first let Mr. Hawkins have the answer to his own.

I hope you will not think I am speaking lightly when I tell you that I can picture Jonathan being delayed by a tiresome piece of work and supposing that his last letter had explained it all. Arthur forgot to tell me last week that he was to go away for two days. He was astonished to learn that I had not known. Of course, Jonathan will have much more to tell you than Arthur had to tell me, and I am impatient with him for keeping it until he comes home.

Come to me when your school duties allow it, if you still wish to. We can walk and talk as we planned, and you may practise your interviews upon me. I promise to answer plainly, though you must give me leave to ask questions of my own. Mamma sends her love. She has written your name in the little book of September plans, which means she expects you here before then.

Your ever loving LUCY.

Mina Murray’s Journal. (Written in shorthand.)

30 June.—School is over for the term. I put my books away and found that I had been keeping Jonathan’s last letter among them. The folds are nearly worn through. I have placed it in my writing case with Mr. Fodor’s letter.

Mr. Hawkins called this evening. He has had no further answer, and will send another telegram to-morrow. He said he wished he had gone abroad himself when the first expected letter failed to come. I told him that none of us had known there would be cause. He seemed grateful for that, though it gave him no information.

I shall go to Lucy next week if nothing prevents it. I have written to say so. Before I left my desk I made certain that Mr. Fodor has both her address and mine.

Telegram, Dr. Kovacs, Bistritz, to Miss Mina Murray.

2 July.

HARKER REACHED OUR HOSPITAL THIS MORNING GRAVELY INJURED. HE ASKS FOR YOU. COME AT ONCE. DR. KOVACS.