"No—yes—oh, Timmy! I'm afraid you must have been listening at the door just now?"

"I didn't like to come in," he said, wriggling uneasily. "I've never heard Jack speak in such an angry way before. He was in a wax, wasn't he? But, Mum, do tell me what Colonel Crofton looked like—I do so want to know."

She put down her pen, and turning, gazed down into the child's eager, inquisitive little face.

"Why should you wish to know, Timmy?" She spoke rather coldly and sternly.

She was sorry indeed now that she had been tempted to repeat what was perhaps after all only the outcome of Miss Pendarth's unconscious jealousy of the woman who had made a fool of the man she had loved as a girl. It was unfortunately true that Olivia Pendarth had an unconscious prejudice against all young and pretty women.

"I want to know," mumbled Timmy, "because I think I do know what he was like."

"If you know what he was like, then there is nothing more to say."

"I want to be sure," he repeated obstinately.

"But how absurd, Timmy! Why should you want to know about a poor old gentleman who is dead, and of whom you are not likely ever to hear anything? I have often told you how horrid it is to be inquisitive."

Timmy paused over that remark. "I want to know," he said in a low mumbling voice, "because I think I have seen him." He did not look up at his mother as he spoke. With the forefinger of his right hand he began tracing an imaginary pattern on the blue serge skirt which covered her knee.

She looked around apprehensively. Yes, the door was shut. She remembered that Dr. O'Farrell had told her never to encourage the child's confidences, but, on the other hand, never to check them.

"I first saw him the evening she came to supper," Timmy mumbled. "They were walking together down the avenue. I thought he was a real old gentleman. There was a dog with him, a terrier exactly like Flick, only a little bigger. Of course I thought it was a real dog too. But now I know that it wasn't. I know now that it was a ghost-dog. It is that dog, Mum, that frightens the other dogs who meet them—not herself, as she's come to think."

"Oh, Timmy,"—Janet felt acutely uncomfortable—"you know I cannot bear to think that such things really happen to you. If you really think them I'd rather know, but I'd so much rather, dear boy, that you didn't think them."

But Timmy was absorbed in what he was saying. "I know now that it was Colonel Crofton," he went on, "because I've seen an old photograph of him, Mum. Mrs. Crofton brought a tin box full of papers with her, and there were some old photographs in it. There was one of an officer in uniform, and it had written across it, 'Yours sincerely, Cecil Crofton.' She tore it up the day after she came here, and threw it in the waste-paper basket, but her cook took it out of the dustbin, and that's how I saw it."

"How disgusting!" exclaimed his mother, feeling herself now on firm ground. "How often have I had to tell you, Timmy, not to go into other people's kitchens and sculleries? No nice boy, no little gentleman, would do such a thing. Of course it was seeing that photograph made you believe you saw Colonel Crofton's—"

She stopped abruptly, for she never, if she could help it, used the word "ghost," or "spirit," to the child.

"Up to now I've always supposed that animals had no souls, Mum, but now I know they have. I know another thing, too," but there was a doubtful note in his voice. "I suppose that ghost-dog hates Mrs. Crofton because she was so unkind to his master. That's why he makes the other dogs fly at her, I expect—or d'you think it's just because they're frightened that they do it?"

Janet Tosswill was an unconventional woman, also she was on terms of very close kinship with her strange little son. Still, she reddened as she drew him closer to her and said: "Look here, Timmy, I want to tell you something. I'm sorry now I said what I did say to Jack about Mrs. Crofton. I ought not to have said it—I'm ashamed of having said it! It was told me by someone who is rather fond of repeating disagreeable, sometimes even untrue, things."

Timmy had also grown very red while his mother was making her little confession. He took up her hand and squeezed it impulsively, as an older person might have done.

"I think I know who you mean," he said. "You mean Miss Pendarth?"

"Yes," said his mother steadily, "I do mean Miss Pendarth. I think it quite possible that poor little Mrs. Crofton was never really unkind to Colonel Crofton at all."

"But you wouldn't like Jack to marry her, Mum, would you?"

Janet felt a shock of dismay go through her. There flashed into her mind that sometimes most disturbing text—"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings...."

"I shouldn't like it at all," she exclaimed, "and I think you're old enough to understand that such a thing would be impossible. Jack won't make enough money to keep a wife for years and years." She hesitated, and then added, speaking to herself rather than to Timmy, "Still, I hope with all my heart that he won't get foolish about her."

"He is foolish about her," said Timmy positively. "Even Nanna thinks"—he waited a moment, then said carefully—"that he is past praying for. She said yesterday to Betty that there were some things prayers didn't help in at all, and that love was one of them. She says that Jack's heart has gone out of his own keeping. Isn't that a funny idea, Mum?"

"It is a terrible idea," and, a little to her own surprise, tears rose to Janet Tosswill's eyes. Timmy, looking up into her face, felt his heart swell with anger against the person who was causing his mother to look as she was looking now.

He moved away a little bit, as if aware that what he was going to say would not meet with her approval, and then he said in a peculiar voice, a defiant, obstinate voice which she knew well: "I do wish that Mrs. Crofton would die—I do hate her so!"

Janet Tosswill looked straight into her little son's face. She felt that she had perhaps made a mistake in treating Timmy as if he were grown up. "My dear," she said very gravely, "remember the Bible says—'Thou shalt not kill.'"

"Of course I know that,"—he spoke with a good deal of scorn. "Of course I want her to die a natural death."



CHAPTER XVI

"No, you mustn't come in; I'm tired. Besides, I've got someone coming to tea."

The ready lie slipped easily off Enid Crofton's tongue, as Jack Tosswill looked down into her face with a strained, pleading look. They were standing in the deserted road close to the outside door set in the lichen-covered wall of The Trellis House. It was already getting dusk, for they had been for a long walk.

"I shall never, never forget to-day!" He gripped her hand hard as he spoke, and she looked up and down the empty road a little apprehensively. But no one was coming or going, and the group of little old cottages opposite The Trellis House held as yet no twinkling lights.

"I shall never forget it, either," she said softly. "But I really must go in now—you know we are meeting this evening?"

"May I come and fetch you?" he asked.

"No, I'd rather you didn't do that—if you don't mind," and then, seeing his look of deep disappointment, she added, "Perhaps you will walk back with me after dinner?"

"Of course I will, but I'm afraid Radmore or one of the girls will want to come too."

As he gazed down into her face there was a look of infinite longing in his eyes, and even she felt a certain touch of genuine emotion sweep over her. It is so very, very delicious to be loved.

"Good-bye, darling," he whispered huskily; and, before she had time to stop him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, passionately, lingeringly. Then, with no other word, he released her and went off quickly down the road.

* * * * *

After Enid Crofton had shut the heavy door in the wall behind her, she did not go straight along the path which led to her front door. Instead, she turned in the gathering darkness to the left, and started walking round the garden which in daylight looked so different, now that Jack Tosswill had put in so many hard mornings' work at it.

She felt more surprised and moved by what had happened this afternoon than she would have thought possible. Poor Jack! Poor, foolish, adoring, priggish boy!

When he had come in this morning, bringing the note of invitation from his step-mother, he had seemed excited and ill at ease. She had felt vexed at his coming so early, as she was anxious to superintend the jam-making herself. Enid Crofton had a very practical side to her character, and she was the last person to risk the wasting of good sugar and good fruit through the stupidity of an inexperienced cook.

While Jack was still there one of her new acquaintances had come in for a moment, for she had already made herself well liked in the neighbourhood, and after the visitor had gone, Jack, exclaiming angrily that they were never left in peace together, had begged her to go for a walk with him that afternoon. This she had consented to do, after discovering that Godfrey Radmore had gone up to London for the day.

And then, during their walk, Jack had suddenly made her a pompous offer of marriage!

No wonder she smiled mischievously to herself, when pacing slowly up and down the path between a row of espaliered apple trees.

She told herself that in a sense it had been her fault. They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, in a lonely little wood, Jack, as he seldom was, tongue-tied and dull. Piqued, she had twitted him on his silence. And then, all at once, he had turned and, seizing her roughly, had kissed her with the pent-up passion of a man in love who till now has never kissed a woman.

Pacing slowly in her dark garden, Enid Crofton's pulse quickened at the recollection of those maladroit, hungry kisses. Something—a mere glancing streak of the great shaft of ecstasy which enveloped Jack Tosswill's whole being had touched her senses into what had seemed to him marvellous response.

When at last he had released her, and in words of at once triumphant and humble adoration, had made her an offer of marriage, she had felt it an absurd anti-climax to a very delicious and, even in her well-stored memory, a unique experience.

And now she remembered the last time a man had kissed her. It was quite a little while ago, on the day she had taken possession of The Trellis House. Of course Captain Tremaine had tipped the guard so that they should have a carriage to themselves. But she had been uncomfortably aware that he was half-ashamed of himself—that he remembered, all the time, that she was a newly-made widow.

Somehow Jack Tosswill hadn't remembered that. Jack hadn't thought of it. But oh! how absurd he had been when his first rapture was over. Without even waiting for an answer to his proposal, he had coolly suggested they should wait till he had made a start at the Bar! At last she had managed to make him listen to her plea that, till a year had elapsed, she could not think of re-marriage. And he had believed her!

All at once she told herself, a little ruefully, that she had perhaps been foolish; that this affair, slight and altogether unimportant as it was, might become a tiresome complication. Of course she could keep him in order, but she was well aware that when a man had kissed her once, he generally wanted to kiss her again, and very soon.

In principle, she had no objection to Jack Tosswill's kisses. There was something fresh, alluring, wholly delightful, even to so hardened a flirt as was Enid Crofton, in being the object of a youth's first love. But she told herself, almost fiercely, that she must make him understand very, very clearly that, though they might sometimes kiss, they must never be caught. Fortunately Jack was curiously cautious for so young a man. That had been one of the reasons why she had been tempted to—well—to make him lose his head.

And then another figure, one of far greater importance and moment to herself than poor Jack Tosswill, came and challenged Enid Crofton to anxious attention. How did she stand with regard to Godfrey Radmore?

She stopped in her pacing, and stared straight before her. For the first time in her life she was quite at a loss as to what a man, of whom she was seeing a great deal, really felt about her.

Rosamund Tosswill was very young, and Enid secretly thought her very stupid, but there could be no doubt as to her essential truthfulness. Now, a day or two ago, Rosamund had said: "Isn't it funny of Godfrey? He told Janet when he first came here that he had made up his mind to remain a bachelor!"

And yet they two, she, Enid, and Godfrey, had had something tantamount to an emotional little scene the first time he had come to see her at The Trellis House. True, it had only lasted two or three seconds, but while it lasted it had been intense. Had Timmy Tosswill not burst into the room in that stupid, inopportune way, Radmore would have certainly taken her in his arms. Though Radmore was no innocent, high-principled boy, even one kiss between them would have altered their whole attitude, the one to the other. She would have seen to that. In her heart she had cursed Timmy for his idiotic intrusion, and now she cursed him again.

Lately she had thought Radmore was becoming aware of Jack Tosswill's growing absorption in her, and she had suspected, as well as hoped, that he was a trifle jealous. Now jealousy, as Enid knew well, is a potent quickener of feeling between a man and a woman. It was unfortunate that Radmore seemed to regard Jack Tosswill as a mere boy—a rather tiresome, priggish boy. Still, that had its good side. Jack was only a very slight complication after all!

Again she cast a fleeting thought to Tremaine. In a sense he was her real mate, her real soul, and, yes, body mate. If only he wasn't so poor! She felt for a moment tempted to throw up everything—to do what he had so urged her to do, what he was always writing and begging her to do. That was to marry him quickly just before the end of his leave, and go out to India with him. He wrote to her every day, and his last letter was in the little silk bag now hanging on her arm.

It was the kind of love-letter that Enid understood, and enjoyed receiving: full of ardent, if rather commonplace, expressions, and of comparisons, very pleasant to her vanity, between her pretty self and the stupid, ugly women he said he was now meeting. He had been with his people in Cornwall—but for that he would of course have come down to see how she was getting on. In this particular letter he announced that he was going to be in London very soon, and might he run down for a day? He had added a question, chaffingly worded, and yet, as she well knew, seriously intended. Did she think it would be improper for him to come and spend two or three days with her? And now she told herself, very decidedly, that of course she couldn't have him here—in stupid, old-fashioned Beechfield. It would be a tiresome, useless complication. But why shouldn't she go up to London for three or four days and have a good time with him there?

Enid was well aware that absence frequently makes the heart grow fonder, and that distance does lend enchantment to the view. But she would not have put it in those exact words.

At last she began walking towards the house, telling herself that she felt oddly tired, and that it would be very pleasant, for once, to have a solitary cup of tea. Her house-parlourmaid was shaping very nicely. Thus the girl had evidently brought the lamps into the sitting-room, though she had forgotten to draw the curtains.

Enid knocked and rang. She had a theory that the possession of a latchkey by their mistress makes servants slow to answer the door.

"There's a person waiting for you in the drawing-room, ma'am. She says she's come down on purpose from London to see you. She came just after you went out first."

There swept over Enid Crofton a strong, sudden premonition of evil. She realised that for the last ten days she had been secretly dreading that this would happen to her. She blamed herself sharply, now that it was too late, for having done nothing further to help the Pipers; but she had hoped the five pounds would have kept them quiet.

"I'll go upstairs and take off my things," she said wearily. "Bring me a cup of tea in my bedroom—I don't want anything to eat—and then I'll come down and see this person." She forced herself to add, "I suppose it's a Mrs. Piper?"

The girl answered at once, "She didn't give her name, ma'am. She just said that she wanted to see you, and that it was urgent. She's not got very long; she wants to catch the six o'clock train from Telford. She wouldn't believe at first that you wasn't in."

Enid found some comfort in those words, and she made up her mind that she would linger upstairs as long as she possibly could, so as to cut short her coming interview with the tiresome young woman. After all there was very little to say. She had behaved in a kind and generous manner to her late husband's servant, and she had already said she would do her best to help him again.

When she got upstairs she lit the two high brass candlesticks on the dressing-table, and then, after she had taken off her hat and long black woollen coat, she sat down in her easy-chair by the wood fire. Soon there came a familiar rap and a welcome cup of tea.

She was sipping it, luxuriously, when there suddenly came a very different kind of rap on the door. It was a sharp, insistent knock, and before she could call out "Come in," the door opened, and a singular-looking figure advanced into the luxurious-looking, low-ceilinged bedroom.

"Excuse me coming up like this, Modam. But I'm afraid of losing my train."

The speaker was small and stout, with a sallow face which might once have held a certain gipsy-like charm, for, in the candlelight, the luminous dark eyes were by far its most arresting feature. She wore a small, old-fashioned-looking, red velvet bonnet perched on her elaborately dressed hair.

Enid Crofton looked at her odd-looking visitor with astonishment. Who on earth could this be? Certainly not Piper's wife. A feeling of intense relief came over her when the strange-looking woman came towards her with a soft, gliding step, and handed her a card on which was written:

Madame Flora

Ladies' wardrobes, gold teeth, and old jewellery purchased at the highest prices known in the trade

"I do 'ope you will excuse me coming up like this," she said again, and her queer Cockney voice sounded quite pleasantly in Enid Crofton's ears. "I've not got very long, and I've been 'ere since four o'clock."

As she spoke she did not look at the pretty young lady sitting by the fire. Her dark eyes were glancing furtively round the attractively furnished bedroom, as if appraising everything that was there, from the uncommon-looking high brass candlesticks on the dressing-table to the pink silk covered eiderdown and drawn linen coverlid on the bed.

Perhaps because she was so extraordinarily relieved, Enid Crofton spoke to this somewhat impudent old-clothes woman very graciously.

"I'm sorry," she began, "but I've nothing in the least suitable for you, Madame Flora. It's a pity you wasted your time waiting for me. There are several other people in Beechfield with whom I expect you might have done business." She smiled as she spoke.

"I wish I'd thought of that, Modam." The woman spoke with a touch of regret. "But your maids expected you might be back any minute, and I did want to meet you, for Piper's that down on 'is luck, I sometimes don't know what to do with 'im! Instead of wanting to employ ex-soldiers, as in course they ought ter, people seem just to avoid them—"

"Piper?" repeated Enid Crofton in a low, hesitating voice. "Then are you Mrs. Piper?"

Was it conceivable that this strange-looking old thing was Piper's wife?

"I've been Mrs. Piper eighteen years," replied Madame Flora composedly, "but I've always kep' on my business, Modam. It's not much of a business now, worse luck! Ladies won't part with their clothes, not when they're dropping off them. In old days, if Piper was down, I was up, so we was all right. But we've both struck a streak of bad luck."

For a few moments neither of them spoke. Mrs. Crofton was staring, astonished, at her visitor, and through her shallow mind there ran the new thought of how very, very little any of us know of other people's lives. After her first shock of dismayed surprise to find that Piper was married at all, she had imagined Piper's wife as something young and, of course, in a way, attractive and easily managed.

"Did you ever come down to my house in Essex?" she asked, still trying to speak pleasantly.

"No, Modam, I never was there. Piper and I 'as always kep' clear of each other's jobs, and I wouldn't be interfering now, but that the matter's becoming serious. Piper's worse than no good when 'e's idle." She hesitated, then went on, "If 'e's to keep off 'is failing, 'e must be working."

There was a pause, and then Enid Crofton spoke, in a low, uncertain tone. "Believe me, Mrs. Piper, when I say that I really will do all I can for him. But it's not easy now to hear of good jobs, and Piper doesn't seem easy to suit."

"You wouldn't care to take my 'usband on again yourself, Modam?"

Again there followed that curious pause which somehow filled Enid with a vague fear.

"I wish I could," she said at last, "but I can't afford it, Mrs. Piper. As a matter of fact, I've done a foolish thing in coming here, to Beechfield, at all. Only the other day one of my husband's relations advised me to let the house."

"Piper thinks, Modam, as how you might 'elp 'im to a job with Major Radmore." The name tripped quickly off the speaker's tongue, as if she was quite used to the sound.

Enid felt a throb of dismay. Did the Pipers know Godfrey Radmore was back?

"We was wondering," said the woman, "if you would give us the major's address?"

Then they didn't know he was back—or did they?

"I don't know it."

Enid Crofton was one of those women—there are more than a truthful world suspects—who actually find it easier to lie than to tell the truth. But she saw the look of incredulity which flashed over the sallow face of her unwelcome visitor.

"Mr. Radmore," she went on hastily, "is taking a motor tour. But he'll be back in London soon, and I'll let you know the moment I know he's settled down."

"I should 'ave thought," said the woman, "that the Major would 'ave 'ad a club where Piper could 'ave written."

"If he has, I don't know it."

And then, all at once, Enid Crofton pulled herself together. After all the interview was going quite smoothly. Nothing—well, disagreeable—had been said.

She got up from her chair. "I hope you'll forgive me, Mrs. Piper, for saying that Piper will never keep any job if he behaves as he did with these last people—I had a very disagreeable letter from the lady."

Mrs. Piper, alias Madame Flora, grew darkly red.

"Piper 'ad a shock this last July," she said, moving a little farther into the room, and so nearer to Enid Crofton. "The thing's been a-weighing on 'is mind for a long time. It's something 'e won't exactly explain. But it's on 'is conscience. Only yesterday 'e says to me, 'e says, 'If I'm drinking, my dear, it's to drown care; I ought to have spoken up very differently to what I done at the poor Colonel's inquest."

The terrible little woman again took a step or two forward, and then she waited, as if she expected the lady to say something. But Enid, though she opened her lips, found that she could not speak. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she sat down again. And, after what seemed to the owner of the attractive, candle-lit room an awful silence, Mrs. Piper went on, speaking now in quite a different tone—easy, confidential, and with a touch of wheedling good nature in it.

"Thanks to your late gentleman, Piper knows all about dogs, and all 'e requires, Modam, to set 'im up as a dogfancier, so to speak, is a moderate bit o' money. As 'e says 'imself, five hundred pound would do it easy. If I may make so bold, that's what reely brought me 'ere, Mrs. Crofton. It do seem to us both, that, under the circumstances, you might feel disposed to find the money?"

Enid looked down as she answered, falteringly: "I told Piper some time ago that it was quite impossible for me to do anything of the kind."

In her fear and distress she uttered the words more loudly than she was aware, and the woman looked round at the closed door with an apprehensive look: "Don't speak so loud. We don't want to tell everyone our business," she said sharply.

Now she came quite close up to her victim, for by now Enid Crofton knew that she was in very truth this woman's victim.

"You think it over," whispered Madame Flora. "We're not in a 'urry to a day or two. And look here, Modam, I'll be open with you! If you'll do that for Piper, it'll be in full discharge of anything you owe 'im—d'you take my meaning?"

Enid Crofton got up slowly from her chair almost as an automaton might have done. She wanted to say that she did not in the least know what Mrs. Piper did mean. But somehow her lips refused to form the words. She was afraid even to shake her head.

"I told you a fib just now"—Mrs. Piper's voice again dropped to a whisper. "Piper's made a clean breast o' the matter to me, and I do think as what it's common justice to admit that my 'usband's evidence at that inquest was worth more than twenty-five pound to you. It wasn't what Piper said; it was what 'e didn't say that mattered, Mrs. Crofton. It's been on 'is mind awful—I'll take my Bible oath on that. But 'live and let live,' that's my motter. We don't want to do anything unkind, but we're in a fix ourselves—"

"I haven't got five hundred pounds," said Enid Crofton desperately; "that's God's truth, Mrs. Piper."

To that assertion Madame Flora made no direct answer; she only observed, in a quiet conversational tone, and speaking no longer in a whisper. "The insurance gent told Piper as what 'e was not entirely satisfied, and 'e said as 'e'd be pleased to see Piper any time if anything 'appened as could throw further light on the Colonel's death. 'An extraordinary occurrence'—that's what the insurance people's gentleman called it, Mrs. Crofton—'an extraordinary occurrence.'"

And then Enid was stung into saying a very unwise thing. "The Coroner did not think it an extraordinary occurrence," she said quietly.

"'E says sometimes as what 'e ought to give 'imself up and say what 'e saw," went on Mrs. Piper with seeming irrelevance.

There was another brief pause: "If you 'aven't got five hundred pounds, Modam, I take it the insurance money has not yet been paid, for it was a matter of two thousand pounds—or so Piper understood from that party what came down to make enquiries."

Enid Crofton looked at her torturer dumbly. She did not know what to say—what to admit, and what to deny.

"Think it over," said the terrible little woman. "We're not in a 'urry to a day or two. We'll give you a fortnight to find the money."

She put her hand, fat, yet claw-like, on Mrs. Crofton's shoulder. "There's nothing to look so frightened about," she said a little gruffly. "Piper and me aren't blackmailers. But we've got to look out for ourselves, same as everybody else does. It's Piper's idea—that five hundred pounds is. 'E says 'twould ease 'is conscience to carry on the pore old Colonel's dog-breeding. As for me, I'd just as lief 'ave 'im in a good job—what gentlefolk call 'a cushy job'—with a gentleman like this Major Radmore seems to be. But there! Piper's just set on them nasty dogs, and 'e's planned it all out."

"Five hundred pounds is a great deal of money." Enid Crofton spoke in a dull, preoccupied tone.

"Not so much as it used to be, not by any manner of means," said Mrs. Piper shrewdly. "Think it over, Mrs. Crofton—and let us know what you can do. Perhaps it needn't be paid all in one; but best to write to Piper next time. 'E says 'e'd like to feel you and 'im were partners-like. I'll tell 'im I arranged for you to 'ave ten days to a fortnight to think it over."

"Thinking won't make money," said Enid in a low voice.

"Such a beautiful young lady as yourself, Modam, can't find it difficult to put 'er 'and on five hundred pounds," murmured Mrs. Piper, and as she said the words there came a leering smile over her small, pursed-up mouth.

And then, turning, she glided across the candle-lit room, and noiselessly opening the door, she slid through it.

Enid Crofton sank farther back into her chintz-covered easy-chair. She was trembling all over, and her hands were shaking. She had not felt so frightened as she felt now, even during the terrible moments which had preceded her being put in the witness-box at the inquest held on her husband's body; and with a feeling of acute, unreasoning terror, she asked herself how she could cope with this new, dreadful situation.

What, for instance, did that allusion to the insurance company mean? She had had the two thousand pounds, and she had spent about a quarter of it paying bills of which her husband had known nothing. Then the settling in at The Trellis House had cost a great deal more than she had expected. Of course she had some left, but five hundred pounds would make a hideous hole in her little store.

What could the Pipers do to her? Could they do anything? The sinister woman's repetition of Piper's curious remark, "'E says sometimes as what 'e ought to give 'imself up, and say what 'e saw," came back to her with sickening vividness.

She looked round her, timorously. The candles on her dressing-table gave such a poor light. How stupid of a village like Beechfield not to have electric light! She stood up and rang for a hot-water bottle. At any rate she might as well try to get a little beauty sleep before dressing to go to the Tosswills.



CHAPTER XVII

Although no definite suggestion or order had been issued by Janet Tosswill, it was understood by everyone in Old Place that special honour was to be paid to Mrs. Crofton this evening.

Janet, when giving Betty a slight but vigorous sketch of the scene which had taken place between herself and Jack, observed, "If she's that sort of woman I think we ought to give her a proper dinner, don't you?" And Betty heartily agreed.

This was the reason why Betty herself, Tom, who acted as butler, and Timmy, who was supposed to help generally both in the kitchen and in the dining-room, did not sit down to table with the others.

Mrs. Tosswill's sarcastic observation was so far justified in that Enid Crofton did feel vaguely gratified to find herself treated to-night far more as a guest of honour than she had been on the first occasion when she had come to the house. The guest herself had done honour to the feast by putting on the most becoming of her diaphanous black evening dresses, and, as she sat to the right of her host, each of her three feminine critics admitted to their secret selves that she was that rather rare thing, a genuinely pretty woman. Features, colouring, hair, were all as near perfection as they well could be, while her slight, rounded figure was singularly graceful.

How fortunate it is that we poor mortals cannot see into each other's hearts and minds! Who, looking at Jack Tosswill's composed, secretive, self-satisfied face, could have divined, even obscurely, his state of mingled pride, ecstasy, and humble astonishment at his own good fortune? To him the lovely young woman sitting next his father was as much his own as though they had already been through the marriage ceremony, and he felt awed and uplifted as well as triumphantly glad.

As for Godfrey Radmore, he also was affected rather more than he would have cared to admit even to himself by the presence of Enid Crofton this evening.

She had become to him something of a mystery, and there is always something alluring in a mystery, especially if the mystery be young, and endowed with that touch of pathos which makes feminine beauty always a touch more attractive to the masculine heart. He was aware that she preferred to see him alone, and this flattered him. While he was able to assure himself confidently that he was in no sense in love with her, his heart certainly beat a little quicker on the comparatively few occasions when he went over into her garden, or, better still, into her little sitting-room, and found her by herself. He also thought it very good-natured, if a little tiresome, of her, to put up with so much of the company of a prig like Jack, and of a selfish girl like Rosamund.

To-night Radmore wondered, not for the first time, why Janet Tosswill did not like Enid Crofton, for he felt, somehow, that there was no love lost between them. He told himself that he must ask Betty to try to become friends with her. Instinctively he relied on Betty's judgment, and that though he saw very little of her, considering what very old friends he and she were. And then, when he was thinking these secret, idle thoughts, he became suddenly conscious that Betty was not among those sitting at the full dining-table.

When Tom came in, bearing a huge soup tureen, and looking, it must be confessed, very red and embarrassed, Janet observed composedly that the person on whom they had relied to help them to-night had failed them at the last moment, and they had decided that it would be simpler for them to wait on themselves.

Radmore muttered to his neighbour, Rosamund, "Where's Betty?"

"In the kitchen. She's the only one of us who knows how to cook. She loves cooking. She'll come into the drawing-room later if she's not too tired."

Radmore felt indignant. It was too bad that Betty, whom he vividly remembered as the petted darling of the house, should now have become—to put it in a poetical way—the family Cinderella! But as the dinner went on, and as the soup was succeeded by some excellent fish, as well as by roast chicken, a particularly delicious blackberry fool, and a subtly composed savoury, he began to wonder whether some good professional cook had not been got in after all. He could hardly believe that Betty had cooked and dished up this really excellent dinner.

All through the meal Timmy flitted in and out, bringing round and removing the plates, but it was Tom who did most of the waiting.

At last Janet, catching Enid Crofton's eye, got up and delivered as parting injunction, "Please don't stay too long behind us, gentlemen—we're going to have coffee in the drawing-room."

Jack Tosswill sprang to the door, and tried to catch Mrs. Crofton's eye as she passed out first, but of course he failed, and as he came back to the table, he observed: "I do hope Betty won't be too tired to come into the drawing-room. Mrs. Crofton was saying the other day that she wished she knew her better." He was in a softened mood, the kind of mood which makes a man not only say, but think, pleasant things.

And then Mr. Tosswill made one of his rare practical remarks. "I have always thought that every woman ought to be taught cooking," he said musingly. "We have certainly just had a very good dinner; I must remember to tell Betty how much I enjoyed that savoury."

"Did Betty cook it all?" asked Radmore.

It was Jack who answered, "Yes, of course she did. Early in the War there was a great shortage of cooks in some of the country hospitals, and so Betty asked a friend of ours to allow her to spend a few weeks in her kitchen. So now we have the benefit of all she learnt there."

Five minutes later the three men stood at the open door of the drawing-room, and at once Radmore saw that Betty was not there. That was really too bad! What selfish girls her sisters were!

Acting on an impulse he could not have analysed, he stepped back into the corridor and walked quickly towards the green baize door which led to the kitchen quarters. Just as he reached it, the door burst open, and Tom, rushing through, almost knocked him over.

"Hullo! Steady there! Where are you going?"

"I'm so sorry, Godfrey, but I'm in the devil of a hurry, for I've got to clear the dining-room. Once that's done, my work's over, and I can go into the drawing-room." Tom was grinning good-humouredly. "I say, Mrs. Crofton does look a peach to-night, doesn't she?"

Even as he spoke, he was hooking the door back. Then he hurried into the dining-room without waiting for an answer.

Godfrey went on with rather hesitating steps down the broad, stone-flagged passage. According to tradition, this part of Old Place was mediaeval, and it was certainly quite different from the rest of the house. He felt a little awkward for he knew he had no business there, and when he got to the big, vaulted kitchen, he stopped and looked round him dubiously. The fire in the old-fashioned, wasteful range had been allowed to die down, and on the round wooden table in the middle of the room were heaped up the dinner plates and dishes.

Suddenly he noticed that the door which led into the scullery was ajar, and he heard Betty's clear, even voice saying: "When you've tidied yourself up a bit, run down and let me see how you look. I'm afraid they're not likely to play any games this evening. It's a real, proper dinner-party, you know, Timmy."

Then he heard his godson's eager voice. "Oh, Betty, do come too! Mrs. Jones can do the washing-up to-morrow morning. If you want to dress I'll hook you up."

"I'm too tired to go up and dress," and Betty's voice did sound very weary. There was a despondent note in it, too, which surprised the man standing in the kitchen. Excepting during the few moments, to him intensely moving and solemn moments, when they had spoken of George within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, he had always seen Betty extraordinarily cheerful.

"You can go just as you are," he heard Timmy say eagerly. "You could pretend you'd just been to a fancy ball as a cook!" He added, patronizingly, "If you put on a clean apron, you'll look quite nice."

Radmore did not catch the answer, but he gathered that it was again in the negative, and a moment later Timmy's little feet scampered up the uncarpeted flight of stairs which led into the upper part of the house.

Walking forward, he quietly pushed open the scullery door, and for some seconds he stood unseen, taking in the far from unattractive scene before him.

The scullery of Old Place was a glorified kind of scullery, for, just before the War, Janet had spent a little of her own money on "doing it up." Since then she had often congratulated herself on the fact that in the days when the process was comparatively cheap, she had had the scullery walls lined five feet up with black and white tiles matching the linoleum which covered the stone floor.

Against this background Betty Tosswill was now standing, a trim, neat figure, in her pink cotton gown and big white apron. She was engaged in washing, drying, and polishing the fine old table glass which had been used that evening.

It was such a relief to her to be alone at last! For one thing, though Timmy and Tom both loved her dearly, their love never suggested to them that it must be disagreeable to her to hear them constantly bickering the one with the other, and they would have been surprised indeed had they known how their teasing squabbles had added to the strain and fatigue of serving the elaborate dinner she had just cooked.

She felt spent, in body and in mind, and in the mood when a woman craves, above all things, for solitude.

"Look here, Betty, can't I do anything to help?"

She started violently, and gave a little cry, while the stem of the wine-glass she held in her hand snapped in two. But Radmore, to her relief, did not notice the little accident.

"There isn't anything to do, thank you." She tried to speak composedly and pleasantly. "I'm going to leave most of the washing-up to the woman who comes in every morning to help us."

"Then why don't you come into the drawing-room now? I heard what Timmy said—and it's quite true!"

"What Timmy said just now?" She turned and looked at him, puzzled.

Godfrey Radmore, in his well-cut dress clothes and the small, but perfect, pearl studs in the shirt of which she had heard Jack openly envy the make and cut, seemed an incongruous figure in the Old Place scullery.

He blundered on. "Timmy said that you look as if you had been at a fancy dress ball as a cook. He ought to have said 'cordon bleu,' for I've never eaten a better dinner!"

And then to his aghast surprise, Betty sat down on one of the wooden chairs near the table where she had been standing and burst into tears. "I don't want to be a 'cordon bleu,'" she sobbed. "I hate cooking—and everything connected with cooking." Then, feeling ashamed of herself, she pulled a clean handkerchief out of her apron pocket, and dabbed her eyes. "I'm just tired out, that's what it is!" she exclaimed, trying to smile. "We had a worrying half-hour, thinking the fish was not going to arrive. You see, Janet dislikes poor Mrs. Crofton so much that she suddenly made up her mind that it was her duty to kill the fatted calf, and in such a case I have to do the killing!"

"It's such a waste for you to be doing the things you are doing now." He spoke with a touch of anger in his voice. "Why, you and I hardly ever see one another! After all, even if you've forgotten the old times, I often remember them—I mean the times when you and I and George were so much together and such good pals. I love every brick of Old Place because of those days." He was speaking with deep feeling now. "Sometimes I feel as if I should like to run away—it's all so different here from what it used to be."

He saw a kind, moved, understanding look come over her eyes, and firm, generous mouth, and quickly, man-like, he pressed his advantage.

"Look here," he said coaxingly, "don't you think we might hit on some kind of compromise? Won't you allow me just to get some sort of temporary housekeeper who can look after things while poor Nanna is laid up?"

She shook her head. "I don't think any of us would like that," she said. "But I daresay I have become too much of a Martha."

She got up, feeling painfully afraid that she was going to cry again. "I don't see why I shouldn't do as Timmy said—change my apron, I mean, and go into the drawing-room. For one thing, I should like to see Mrs. Crofton's dress. Tom says she looks a regular peach! That's his highest form of praise, you know."

Radmore suddenly resolved to say something which had been on his mind of late. "Don't you think that Jack's making rather a fool of himself over that pretty little lady?"

Betty looked across at him with the frank, direct gaze that he remembered so well. "I'm afraid he is," she answered. "He and Janet had quite a row about her this morning. He seemed to think we had been rude to her; he was most awfully huffy about it. But I suppose saying anything only makes things worse in such a case, doesn't it?"

"I don't see why I shouldn't speak to her. She and I know each other pretty well. She was a desperate little flirt when I first knew her in Egypt." And then, as he saw a look cross her face to which he had no clue, he added hastily:—"She's quite all right, Betty. She's quite a straight little woman."

"I'm sure she is," said Betty cordially.

She was wondering, wondering, wondering what Godfrey really thought of Enid Crofton? Whether or no there had been a touch of jealousy in what he had said about Jack just now? He had said the words about Jack's making a fool of himself very lightly. Still there had been a peculiar expression on his face.

During the last fortnight, while doing the hundred and one things which fell to her share, Betty had given the subject of Enid Crofton and Godfrey Radmore a good deal of thought, while telling herself all the time that, after all, it was none of her business—now.

All at once she became aware that Radmore was looking hard at her. "Look here," he exclaimed, coming up close to where she was again engaged in drying and polishing the heavy old crystal goblets. "I want to ask you a favour, Betty. It's absurd that I should be here, with far more money than I know what to do with, while the only people in the world I care for, are all worried, anxious, and overworking themselves. Janet says it's impossible to get a cook. What I want to do if you'll let me—" he looked at her pleadingly, and Betty's heart began to beat: thus was he wont to look at her in the old days, when he wanted to wheedle something out of her.

"What I want to do," he went on eagerly, "is to go up to London to-morrow morning and bring back a cook in triumph! Life has taught me one thing,—that is that money can procure anything." As she remained silent, he added in a tone of relief, "There, that's settled! You go up to bed now. I'll be off early in the morning, and we'll have a cook back by lunch-time."

"Indeed you won't!" She faced him squarely. "I know you mean very kindly, Godfrey—I know exactly how you feel. I've often felt like that myself; you feel that

"'Sympathy without relief Is like mustard without beef.'

"That's the organ-grinder's motto, and a very good motto, too. But we're the exception which proves the rule. We're grateful for your sympathy, but we don't want your relief."

As he gazed at her, both dismayed and very exasperated, she went on, speaking a little wildly:—"Mustard's a very good thing. I think I needed a little mustard just now to binge me up!"

"But that's perfectly absurd!" he exclaimed. "Why not have the beef as well as the mustard? And look here. I don't think it's fair to me." He stood, looking straight at her, his face aglow with feeling. And again it was as if the old Godfrey of long ago, the Godfrey that had been impetuous, hot-tempered, unreasonable, and yet so infinitely dear to her, who stood there, so near to her that had she moved, he must have touched her. She sat down, and unseen by him, she put her two hands on the edge of the well-scrubbed table, and pressed her fingers down tightly. Then she smiled up at him, and shook her head.

"You're treating me like a stranger," he protested doggedly; "however badly I've behaved, I've not deserved that."

He was looking down at her hair, the lovely fair hair which had always been her greatest beauty—the one beauty she now shared with Rosamund. He wondered if it would ever grow long again. And yet now he told himself that he did not want to see her different from what she had become.

"Treating you like a stranger? You're the first visitor we've had to stay at Old Place since the Armistice."

As he said nothing, she went on, a little breathlessly, "D'you remember what a lot of people used to come and go in the old days? That was one of the nice things about Janet. She loved to entertain our friends, even our acquaintances. But now we never have anybody. It shows how we feel about you that we are having you here, like this. But we can only do it if you'll take us as we are."

"Of course I take you as you are," he said aggrieved, "but I don't see why I shouldn't do my little bit, when it's so easy for me to do it. People talk such rot about money! They'll take anything in the world but money from those who—" he hesitated, and then boldly brought out the word—"love them."

"And yet," said Betty quietly, "you yourself contemptuously rejected the money that father wanted to give you when he could well afford it—the day you left Beechfield nine years ago."

He hesitated, unutterably astonished, and yes, very much moved, too, at this, her first reference to their joint past.

"I know I did," he said at last, "and I was a fool to do it. That cheque of Mr. Tosswill's would have made all the difference to me during certain awful weeks in Australia when I didn't know where to turn for a shilling. I've been right up against it—the reality of things, I mean—and I know both how much and how little money counts in life. It counts a lot, Betty."

"I've been up against the reality of things, too," said Betty slowly, "and I've learnt how very little money counts. You'd have known that, if you'd been with the French Army. That was the difference between the French and the English. The French poilu had no money at all, and the English Tommy had plenty. But it made no difference in the big things."



CHAPTER XVIII

Meanwhile Timmy, upstairs, had performed what was for him quite an elaborate toilet. He possessed a new Eton suit of which he was secretly proud, for in this as in so many things unlike most little boys, he took great care of his clothes, and had an almost finicking dislike to what was rough or untidy. His two younger sisters' untidiness was a perpetual annoyance to him, and he still felt sore and angry at the way Rosamund had upset his toy-box when looking for that old prescription.

To-night he felt queerly excited and above himself. After-dinner coffee had been made in a way Betty had learnt in France, and she had foolishly allowed him to drink a cup of the strong, potent, delicious fluid. This had had a curious effect on him, intensifying his already acute perceptions, and making him feel both brave and bold as well as wary—wary Timmy Tosswill always was.

And now he was eagerly debating within himself whether he could carry out an experiment he had an eager wish to try. It had filled his mind, subconsciously, ever since he had slipped quickly in front of his brother Jack to open the front door to Mrs. Crofton, a couple of hours ago.

Mrs. Crofton was very much of a town lady, and she had actually been accompanied, during her short progress through the dark village, by her parlourmaid. When Timmy opened the front door, she had been engaged in giving the girl a few last directions as to how a lighted candle was to be left out for her in her hall, for she had brought her latchkey with her. After ringing the bell, the lady and her maid had moved away from the door a little way, and Timmy, staring out at the two figures, who stood illumined by the hall light out on the gravel carriage drive, had seen Something Else.

He did not invariably see Mrs. Crofton accompanied or companioned by that of which he had spoken to his mother. Sometimes days would go by and he would see nothing, though he was a constant, if never a welcome, visitor at The Trellis House.

Then all at once, sometimes when she was in the garden, at other times in the charming little parlour, Timmy would see the wraith of Colonel Crofton, and the wraith of Colonel Crofton's terrier, Dandy, looking as real as the flesh-and-blood woman beside whom they seemed to stand. Sometimes they appeared, as it were, intermittently, but now and again they would stay quite a long time.

As long as he could remember, Timmy had been aware of what Nanna expressed by the phrase "things that were not there," and he was so accustomed to the phenomena that it did not impress his own mind as anything very much out of the way, or strange.

Dr. O'Farrell had always shown a keen interest in Timmy's alleged visions and presentiments. Like so many country doctors of the old school, he was a man not only of great natural shrewdness, but of considerable intellectual curiosity, and, from his point of view, by far the most inexplicable of the little boy's assertions had concerned a long vanished building which had stood, for something like three centuries, close to the parish church, right on the main street of the village.

One Easter Sunday, Timmy, coming out of church, had excitedly exclaimed that he saw to his right a house where no house had been up to yesterday. His sisters had laughed at him and his mother had snubbed him. But when Janet had told Dr. O'Farrell of her little boy's latest and most peculiar claim to having seen something which was not there, the doctor had gone home and looked up an old county history, to find that up to Waterloo year there had still been standing in the pretty little hamlet of Beechfield, a small Elizabethan manor-house which had figured in the Titus Oates conspiracy.

* * * * *

But to return to the evening of Mrs. Crofton's second visit to Old Place.

Timmy had given his mother his word of honour that Flick should not be released from the stable till their visitor had left. But no casuist ever realised more clearly than did Timothy Tosswill, the delicate distinctions which spread, web-like, between the spirit, and the letter, of a law. And while he moved nimbly about his bedroom, the plan, or rather the plot he had formed, took formal shape.

Josephine, Timmy's white Angora cat, was now established in a comfortable basket in a corner of the scullery. There she lay, looking like a ball of ermine, with her two ten-days old kittens snuggling up close to her. Josephine was a nervous, fussy mother, but she was devoted to her master, and he could do with her anything he liked.

Very softly he crept past Nanna's door, and as he started walking down the back staircase, he heard voices.

Then Betty and Godfrey were still in the scullery? That was certainly a bit of bad luck, for though he thought he could manage his godfather, he knew he couldn't deceive Betty. Betty somehow seemed to know by instinct when he, Timmy, was bent on some pleasant little bit of mischief.

He need not have been afraid, for as he slowly opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, Betty exclaimed, "I'm going into the drawing-room after all! But first I must run upstairs and make myself tidy. You two go on, and I'll follow as soon as I can."

She ran past Timmy, and at once the boy said firmly to Radmore, "I'm going to take my cat, Josephine, into the drawing-room. Ladies who hate dogs nearly always like cats."

"I don't think Mrs. Crofton cares for cats," answered Radmore carelessly.

"Oh, yes, she does—and the other day she said The Trellis House was overrun with mice. Betty thinks it would be a very good home for one of Josephine's new kittens."

Even while he was speaking, the big white cat had left her basket and was walking round her master, purring. He stooped down and lifted her up.

"If Mrs. Crofton sees Josephine, she will simply long to have one of her kittens! Will you bring along the white one, Godfrey—the one we call Puff? We do so want to find him a good home."

Radmore walked across to where the big basket stood on the floor, and peered into it dubiously: "Why, Timmy, they're tiny! Poor little wretches! I wouldn't dream of bringing one of them along—it would be sheer cruelty. Of course you can bring the cat if you feel like it, but I shouldn't if I were you."

"I'll only take her in for a minute."

Timmy felt just a little sorry Radmore had refused to bring Puff along, for he was well aware that a cat is never so fierce as when she imagines she is defending her young.

They went off together, Radmore in front, Timmy, hugging Josephine, behind. Just outside the drawing-room door the boy stopped for a moment, and shifted the cat's weight from one arm to the other. There had come over him a rather uncomfortable premonition of evil, but he now felt strung up to go through with his experiment.

From within the drawing-room there came the sound of laughter and talking. It was evident that the party was going well, and that everyone in there was merry and at their ease.

"Would you mind opening the door, Godfrey?" There was a slight quiver of apprehension in Timmy's voice.

Radmore opened the door, and for a fleeting moment he saw an attractive, placid scene spread out before him.

The two girls, in their pretty light dresses, were standing by the wood fire. On the sofa, to their left, with the light from one of the lamps focussed full on her, sat Mrs. Crofton, her bare left arm hanging over the side of the low couch. Jack, perched on the arm of a big chair, was looking at her, all his soul in his eyes. Mr. Tosswill sat some way off under a shaded reading lamp; his wife, knitting, not far from him. Tom was surreptitiously reading a book in a corner behind the sofa.

And then, all at once, Radmore found himself whirled into an unutterable scene of confusion and terror.

As Timmy walked through the open door Josephine had leapt out of his arms on to the floor. For a flashing second the cat stood on the carpet, her white fur all abristle, her back arched, and her tail lashing furiously in the air. Then, uttering a hoarse cry of rage and fear, she sprang towards Mrs. Crofton, and dug first her claws, and then her teeth, into the white arm that hung over the side of the couch.... Josephine's terrified victim gave a fearful cry, everyone in the room got up and rushed forward, and at that exact instant Betty came into the drawing-room. Sweeping a piece of embroidery off the piano, she threw it over the cat's head, took up the now struggling, helpless bundle, and rushed out of the room with it.

Then followed a scene of appalling confusion. Enid, completely losing control of herself, screamed and screamed and screamed.

Few people, fortunately for themselves, have ever heard a woman scream, and some of those present felt they would never forget the sound. In the minds of most of the grown-up people there was the same unspoken question—had the cat suddenly gone mad? Had she got hydrophobia?

They all crowded round their unfortunate guest—all but Timmy, who stood aside with a look in which remorse, fear, and triumph struggled for mastery on his queer little face.

And then at last, when Mrs. Crofton lay back, moaning, on the sofa, surrounded by her distracted and horrified hosts, somebody suggested that Dr. O'Farrell should be sent for, and Jack rushed into the hall to find Betty already at the telephone.

Meanwhile Janet Tosswill was doing her best to persuade the victim of Josephine's savage aggression to come upstairs and await the doctor there; but, shudderingly, Enid Crofton refused to stir.

A slight diversion was created when Betty came in with a basin of warm water, soap, and a sponge. Again everyone crowded round the sofa, and Jack and Radmore both felt alarm, as well as horror, when they saw the wounds made by the cat's claws and the cat's teeth.

While her arm was being bathed, Mrs. Crofton grew so pale that Janet feared she was going to faint, and Rosamund was sent flying up to the medicine cupboard to get some brandy.

Dr. O'Farrell was at home when telephoned for, but the quarter of an hour which elapsed before he reached Old Place seemed very long to some of the people waiting there. The doctor came in smiling, but his face altered and grew very grave when he saw Mrs. Crofton's arm, and heard the confused, excited account of what had happened.

To the patient he made light of the whole matter, but while someone was putting on Mrs. Crofton's overshoes and while her evening cloak was being brought in he moved a little aside with Jack, Mr. Tosswill, and Radmore. None of them noticed that Timmy was hovering on the outskirts of the group.

"I want to say," he began in a low voice, "that of course that cat will have to be kept under observation, or else she'll have to be destroyed and her body sent up to town to make sure of—you know what! Meanwhile, no one must go near her. Where is she now?"

Mr. Tosswill looked vaguely round. "I think Betty took her into the kitchen," he said slowly, and then he called out, "Betty?"

The girl came up. "Yes, father?"

"What did you do with Timmy's cat?"

"I put her back in the scullery, with her kittens. They only opened their eyes yesterday. Of course Timmy ought never to have brought her into the drawing-room."

Dr. O'Farrell looked much relieved. He turned round: "Oh, she's just had kittens, has she? That probably accounts for the whole thing."

Mrs. Crofton roused herself. "I do hope that horrible cat will be killed at once," she cried hysterically. "I can't stay in Beechfield if she's left alive."

Dr. O'Farrell answered soothingly, "Don't you fret, Mrs. Crofton. She's a vicious brute, and shot she shall be."

No one noticed that Timmy had heard every word of this conversation; no one noticed the expression on his face.

It had been arranged that the doctor should take Mrs. Crofton home in his car, and that only when she was comfortably in bed should those ugly little wounds be properly dressed.

As the doctor was hurrying down the passage into the hall, he was surprised to see Timmy at his elbow and to hear the boy's voice pipe up: "If my cat's not mad, she won't have to be killed, doctor, will she?" He asked the question in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone.

"Yes, my little friend, mad or not mad, she's deserved death—and no one must go near her till the fell deed is done!" And then, as he suddenly caught sight of Timmy's strained, agonised face, he added kindly: "She'll be in the cats' heaven before she knows she's touched. I'll come down in the morning and I'll shoot her through the window myself—I'm a dead shot, Timmy, my boy."

As Janet came along, Timmy burst out crying, and his mother, distracted, turned to Radmore. "Oh, Godfrey, do get him away upstairs! He's tired out, that's what it is. Unfortunately the cat belongs to him, and he's very fond of her—he's almost as fond of Josephine as he is of Flick."

Radmore put his hand on his godson's shoulder. "Come, Timmy, don't cry. It's unmanly."

But Timmy, instead of making an effort to control himself, wrenched himself away and ran down the long corridor towards the kitchen. Even as a tiny child he had hated to be caught crying.

There followed an absurd scene at the front door, Jack and Rosamund almost quarrelling as to which of them should accompany Mrs. Crofton home. In the end they had both gone, and Janet, ordering everyone else to bed, sat up, wearily awaiting their return, for neither of them had thought of taking a latchkey.

Poor Janet! Her thoughts were sad and worried thoughts, as she waited, trying to read, in the drawing-room. At the very last, Betty had lingered for a moment after the others, and she had noticed that the girl's eyes were full of tears.

"Why, Betty, what's the matter? I don't think we need really worry over Mrs. Crofton."

"I'm not thinking of Mrs. Crofton. I can't bear the thought of poor Josephine being shot to-morrow morning."

"Oh, my dear, don't you turn sentimental! I never did like that poor cat; to me there's always been something queer and uncanny about her."

"You've never liked cats," Betty answered, rather aggressively. "Timmy and I are devoted to Josephine—so is Nanna."

Janet had checked the contemptuous words trembling on her lips. Abruptly she had changed the subject: "I want to tell you, Betty, how splendidly the dinner went off to-night. Your cooking was first chop!"

Betty at once softened. But all she said was: "I would give anything for Mrs. Crofton to leave Beechfield, Janet. Did you see Jack's face?"

"Yes, and I do feel worried about it. Yet one can't do anything."

"I suppose one can't. But it's too bad of her. I think her a horrid woman. Jack is just a scalp to her. I don't mind her flirtation with Godfrey—that's much more reasonable!"

Then she had hurried off upstairs without waiting for an answer, and her step-mother, looking back, rather wondered that Betty had said that.



CHAPTER XIX

Two hours later Janet Tosswill, after having tried in vain to read herself to sleep, got out of bed and put on her dressing gown. Somehow she felt anxious about Timmy. She had gone to his room on her way up to bed; but, hearing no sound, she had crept away, hoping that he had already cried himself to sleep.

All sorts of curious theories and suspicions drifted through her mind as she lay, tossing this way and that, trying to fall asleep. She wondered uneasily why Timmy had brought Josephine at all into the drawing-room. Of course there had been nothing exactly wrong in his doing so, though, as Betty had justly remarked, it was a stupid thing to do so soon after the birth of the cat's kittens. And Timmy was not stupid.

Janet told herself crossly that it was almost as if Mrs. Crofton had the evil eye, as far as animals were concerned! There had come back to her the unpleasant scene which had occurred on the first evening their late guest had come to Old Place, when Flick, most cheerful and happy-minded of terriers, had behaved in such an extraordinary fashion. But disagreeable as that affair had been, it was nothing to what had happened to-night.

She felt she would never forget the scene which had followed on the white cat's attack on Mrs. Crofton. And yet, while concerned and sorry, she had been shocked at the poor young woman's utter lack of self-control.

It was quite true, as Betty had somewhat bitterly remarked, that she, Janet Tosswill, did not care for cats. Unfortunately there was a certain sentimental interest attached to Josephine, for she had been brought from France as a kitten, a present from Betty to Timmy, by an officer who had been George's closest pal. She was also ruefully aware that old Nanna would very much resent the disappearance of "French pussy," as she had always called Josephine. As for Timmy, Janet had never seen her boy look as he had looked to-night since the dreadful day that they had received the War Office telegram about George.

Leaving her room, she walked along the corridor till she came to Timmy's door. She tried the handle, and, finding with relief that the door was unlocked, walked in. At once there came a voice across the room, "Is that you, Mum?"

"Yes, Timmy, it's Mum."

Shutting the door, she felt her way across the room and came and sat down on Timmy's bed. He was sitting up, wide awake.

She put her arms round him. "I'm so sorry," she said feelingly; "so sorry, Timmy, about your poor cat! But you know, my dear, that if—if she were left alive, we could never feel comfortable for a single moment. You see, when an animal has done that sort of thing once, it may do it again."

"Josephine would never do it again," said Timmy obstinately, and he caught his breath with a sob.

"You can't possibly know that, my dear. She would of course have other kittens, and then some day, when some perfectly harmless person happened to come anywhere near her, she would fly at him or her, just as she did at Mrs. Crofton."

"No, she wouldn't—she didn't do anything like that when she had her last kittens."

"I know that, Timmy. But you heard what Dr. O'Farrell said."

"Dr. O'Farrell isn't God," said Timmy scornfully.

"No, my dear, Dr. O'Farrell is certainly not God; but he is a very sensible, humane human being—and the last man to condemn even an animal to death, without good reason."

There was a rather painful pause. Janet Tosswill felt as if the child were withdrawing himself from her, both in a physical and in a mental sense.

"Mum?" he said in a low, heart-broken voice.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I want to tell you something."

"Yes, Timmy?"

"It's I who ought to be shot, not Josephine. It was all my fault. It had nothing to do with her."

"I don't know what you mean, Timmy. You mustn't talk in that exaggerated way. Of course it was foolish of you to bring the cat into the drawing-room, but still, you couldn't possibly have known that she would fly at Mrs. Crofton, or you wouldn't have done it."

"I did think she'd fly at Mrs. Crofton," he whispered.

Janet felt disagreeably startled. "What d'you mean, Timmy? D'you mean that you saw the cat fly at her before it happened?"

She had known the boy to have such strange, vivid premonitions of events which had come to pass.

But Timmy answered slowly: "No, I don't mean that. I mean, Mum, that I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to see if Josephine would see what Flick saw—I mean if she'd see the ghost of Colonel Crofton's dog. She did, for the dog was close to Mrs. Crofton's arm—the arm hanging over the side of the sofa, you know."

"Oh, Timmy! How very, very wrong of you to do such a thing!"

"I know it was wrong." Timmy twisted himself about. "But it's no good you saying that to me now—it only makes me more miserable."

"But I have to say so, my boy." Janet was not a Scotch mother for nothing. "I have to say so, Timmy, and I shall not be sorry this happened, if it makes you behave in a different way—as I hope it will—the whole of your life long."

"It won't—I won't let it—if anything is done to Josephine!"

But she went on, a little desperately, yet speaking in a quiet, collected way: "I believe the things you say, Timmy. I believe you do see things which other people are not allowed to see. But that ought to make you far, far more careful—not less careful. Try to be an instrument for good, not for evil, my dear, dear child."

Timmy did not answer at once, but at last he said in a queer, muffled voice: "If I were to tell Dr. O'Farrell what I did, do you think it would make any difference? Do you think that he'd let Josephine go on being alive?"

"No," his mother answered, sadly, "I don't think it would make any difference."

"I thought by what the doctor said at first that they were going to take Josephine somewhere to see if she was really mad," said Timmy in a choking voice, "just as they did to Captain Berner's dog last year."

Janet Tosswill got up from her little boy's bed. She lit a candle. Poor Timmy! She had never seen the boy looking as he was looking now; he seemed utterly spent with misery.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, my dear. I'll speak to Dr. O'Farrell myself in the morning, and I'll ask him whether something can't be done in the way of a reprieve. I'll tell him we don't mind paying for Josephine to be sent away for a bit to a vet."

Hope, ecstatic hope, flashed into Timmy's tear-stained face. "You mean to a man like Trotman?"

"Yes, that's what I do mean. But I mustn't raise false hopes. I fear Dr. O'Farrell has made up his mind; he promised Mrs. Crofton the cat should be shot. Still, I'll do my very best."

Timmy put his skinny arms round his mother's neck.

"I'm glad you're my mother, Mum," he muttered, "and not my step-mother."

She smiled for the first time. "That's rather a double-edged compliment, if I may say so! But I suppose it's true that I would do a good deal more for you than I would for any of the others."

"I didn't mean that," exclaimed Timmy, shocked. "I only meant that I wouldn't love you as well. I don't mean ever to be a step-father—I shall start a lot of boys and girls of my own."

"All right," she said soothingly, "I'm sure you will. Lie down now, and try to go to sleep." She hoped with all her heart that the boy would sleep late the next morning, as he very often did when tired out, and that the execution, if execution there must be, would be over by the time he woke.

She bent down, tucked him up, kissed him, blew out the candle, and then went quickly out of the room.

* * * * *

As soon as his mother had shut the door, Timmy sat up in bed, and then he gave a smothered cry. It was as if he had seen flash out into the darkness his beloved cat's wistful face, her beautiful, big, china-blue eyes, gazing confidently at him, as if to say, "You'll save me, Master, won't you?"

He listened intently for a few minutes, then he slipped down and felt his way to the door. He opened it; but there came no sound from the sleeping house. Closing the door very, very softly, he lit his candle and rapidly dressed himself in his day clothes, finally putting on a thick pair of walking shoes, and over them goloshes. Timmy hated goloshes, and never wore them if he could help it, but he had read in some detective story that they deadened sound.

Then he blew his candle out, and again he went across to the door and listened. Opening it at last, he slithered along the familiar corridor till he reached the three shallow steps which led up to the comparatively new part of Old Place. There he felt his way with his fingers along the wall to the room which had always been called, as long as he could remember, "George's room." Turning the handle of the door slowly, he saw, to his great surprise and gladness, that his godfather was not asleep.

Radmore was sitting up in bed, reading luxuriously by the light of four candles which he had placed on a table by his bedside.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, as his godson's odd-looking little figure shuffled across the room. "Why, what's the matter?" He spoke very kindly, for Timmy's face was scared, his eyes red-rimmed with crying.

"Come to have a chat, old boy? Why, Timmy—" as he suddenly realised the boy was fully dressed, "whatever have you been doing? I thought you'd gone to bed ever so long ago!"

"I've been in bed a long time," answered Timmy, sidling up close to his bed, "but I've just had a talk with Mum. I've come to ask you, Godfrey, if you'll help me with something very important." He added: "Even if you won't help me, I trust you to keep my secret."

"Of course I'll keep your secret, old son."

"I'm going to take Josephine and her kittens to Trotman," Timmy announced solemnly. "I've been wondering, coming along the passage, if you would take us there in your motor. But if you don't feel you want to do that, I'm going to walk. It's not very far, only seven miles if one goes by footpaths, and I could get a lift back."

"Trotman?" repeated Radmore. "Who's Trotman?"

It was Timmy's turn to be surprised. "I thought everyone—I mean every man—in the world, knew about Trotman! Why, there was an account of him once in the London Magazine. He's the famous vet—he lives at Epsom."

Radmore lay back, and whistled thoughtfully.

Timmy went on eagerly. "Last year there was a man near here who thought he had a mad dog—and he took him to Trotman. Trotman kept him for ever so long, and it turned out that the dog was not mad at all. I know that Josephine isn't mad."

"I don't think she's mad," said Radmore frankly, "but she's a pretty vicious brute, Timmy. Is this the first time she's ever flown at anyone?" He looked searchingly at his godson.

"The very first time of all," answered the boy passionately. "I know why Josephine flew at Mrs. Crofton—at least she didn't fly at her—at Mrs. Crofton. She flew at the dog Mrs. Crofton always has with her."

Radmore gave the child a long, steady look.

"Come, Timmy, you know as well as I do that Mrs. Crofton had no dog with her."

"She had a dog with her," repeated Timmy obstinately. "It's not a dog you can see, but I see him and Flick sees him. I wanted to see if Josephine would see him too. That's why I took her in there. So if she's shot it will be all my fault." His voice broke, and, covering his face with his hands, he turned his back on the bed and its occupant.

Radmore stared at the small heaving back. There could be no doubt that Timmy was speaking the truth now. "All right," he said quickly. "I'll do what you want, Timmy. So cheer up! I suppose you've got a big basket in which you can put your cat and her kittens? While I put on some clothes, you can go and get her ready. But I advise you for your own sake to be quiet. Our game will be all up, if your mother wakes. I simply shouldn't dare to disobey her, you know." He smiled quizzically at the child, and, as he mentioned Janet, he lowered his voice instinctively.



CHAPTER XX

However long Radmore lives, he will never forget that strange drive through the autumn night. Fortunately, from the two conspirators' point of view, there were only old-fashioned stables at Old Place, and Radmore's car was kept in the village in a barn which had been cleverly transformed by the blacksmith into a rough garage.

While he dressed, and, indeed, after he joined the boy downstairs, he had puzzled over Timmy—over the mixture of cruelty and kindness the child had shown that evening. He could not but recall, with a feeling of discomfort, the simple, innocent way in which the boy had explained why he wanted to take his cat, Josephine, into the drawing-room—really to do a kindness to the mistress of The Trellis House! It was somewhat disagreeable to reflect how he, Radmore, who rather prided himself on his knowledge of human nature, had been taken in.

Off the two started at last, creeping out of one of the back doors. But in his agitation over the business of getting the cat and her kittens safely out of Old Place, Timmy had forgotten to put on a coat. They were halfway down the avenue before Radmore noticed that the boy was shivering, and then, mindful of Janet, he ordered him to go back and get the warmest coat he could.

And then, while he waited impatiently in the avenue, Radmore visualised the extraordinary scene which had taken place in the drawing-room last evening. Had the cat really seen anything of a supernatural nature? Or was it only that she had been frightened by being suddenly brought into a room full of people? If so, it was perhaps natural that she had blindly flown at the one stranger there.

At last Timmy returned, and they started off, neither speaking a word until they were clear of the village. Radmore thought he knew every inch of the way, for he and Betty had once cycled together all over the countryside. He checked a sigh as he thought of those days—how happy he had been, with that simple, unquestioning happiness which belongs only to extreme youth. He wondered if Betty ever remembered those far-off days. They had come very near, the one to the other, last evening, and yet, from his point of view, theirs was an unsatisfactory kind of friendship. It was as if she was always holding something back from him. And then, while he was thinking of Betty, the little boy sitting by his side suddenly observed:

"Perhaps we might tell Betty—I mean when we get back again—where Josephine and her kittens are? She was awfully upset last night; almost as upset as I was. You see, Josephine's a French cat. She was brought home—I mean to England, you know—by the officer who now wants to marry Betty." Timmy uttered these words in a very matter-of-fact voice. Then, for a moment, he forgot Betty, for the car swerved suddenly.

"The officer who wants to marry Betty?" repeated Radmore. "I didn't know there was an officer who wanted to marry Betty."

"Nobody's supposed to know," said Timmy composedly. "But Mum and I, as well as father, know. Only a very vulgar sort of girl lets anyone know when someone wants to marry her. Mr. Barton is so ridiculous about Dolly, following her about and always looking at her, that we all know it, though Mum wonders sometimes if he knows it himself. But neither Dolly nor Rosamund knows about Betty's man. Luckily, they were away when he last came here and saw father. The first time Betty meant him to send the kitten in a basket from London. She even gave him the money for Josephine's fare, but he would give it back to father. He brought her himself because he wanted to see father, and talk to him about Betty and George."

"Then he knew George, too?"

"Yes, that's how he got to know Betty, when she was in France, you know, and why she gave him the kitten to bring home on leave. He knew all about us, and when father called me into the study to take Josephine, he said: 'Is this Timmy?' And then after that he just went straight on about Betty, as if I wasn't there. He said that if he got through, he meant to wait—he didn't mind how long, if only Betty would say 'Yes' in the end."

"Has he been here since Betty came home?" asked Radmore abruptly.

Somehow this revelation astonished and discomfited him very much. It had never occurred to him that Betty might marry.

"No," said Timmy. "He has never come again, for he's in Mesopotamia; but he writes to Betty, and then she writes back to him. You see he was a friend of George's—that makes her like him, I suppose."

They drove on for a while in silence, and then Timmy enquired, rather anxiously: "You won't tell Betty I've told you, will you, Godfrey? I don't think she wants anyone to know. He sent me a lovely picture postcard once—it was to Timmy Tosswill, Esq.—and then I asked Betty whether she meant to marry him, as he was such a nice sort of man. She was awfully angry with me for knowing about it, and she began to cry. So you won't say anything to her, will you?"

"No, of course I won't," said Radmore hastily.

They were now emerging on the wide sweep of down commanding the little old country town which stands to the whole world as the racing capital of England. To their left, huge and gaunt against the night sky, rose the Grand Stand.

"Where does Trotman hang out?" asked Radmore. "Shan't we have a devil of a difficulty in knocking him up?"

"I don't think we shall," said his small companion, confidently. "You see there must always be some sick animal for someone to sit up with. I'd rather be nurse to a dog than to a woman, wouldn't you?"

They turned into the steep road leading into the town, flashing past shuttered villas set in gardens, till they reached a labyrinth of quaint, narrow, walled thoroughfares dating from the 18th century.

"We're very near now," said Timmy. "Isn't it funny, Godfrey, to feel that everybody's asleep but us?" They had come to a corner where high walls enclosed what might once have been the kitchen garden of a Georgian manor-house.

"Here it is!" cried the boy.

Radmore stopped the car and then he jumped out and struck a match. Over a door, set in the wall, stood out in clear lettering the words, "John Trotman, Veterinary Surgeon." Feeling a little doubtful of what their reception would be like, he pulled the bell. There was a pause, a long pause, and then they heard the sound of light, quick footsteps, and the door was unlocked.

"Who's there? What is it?" came in a woman's voice, and a quaint figure, dressed in a short, dark dressing-gown, and looking not unlike Noah's wife, appeared holding a lantern in her hand. She had a kindly, shrewd face, and when Radmore said apologetically, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but the matter is really urgent, and we've brought a sick animal many miles in order that it may benefit by Mr. Trotman's skill," her face cleared, and she said cordially: "All right, sir, come right in."

As they walked along through a curious kind of trellised tunnel, Timmy carrying Josephine and her kittens, there arose an extraordinary chorus of sounds in which furious barking predominated.

"You have a regular menagerie here," said Radmore, smiling.

"Why, yes, sir," she answered simply, "but they'll all quiet down after a bit. They're startled like, hearing strange footsteps."

She led them into the house, and so through into a pleasant little parlour, full of the good 18th Century furniture which may still be found in the older houses of an English country town. Sporting prints—some of considerable value—hung on the walls. There was still a little fire alight in the deep grate, throwing out a warmth that was comforting to both the man and the boy.

"If you'll wait here, I'll get my husband."

While Mrs. Trotman had left the room, Radmore remarked: "I've made up my mind what to say to Trotman, so please don't interrupt."

And Timmy listened silently to the explanation his godfather gave of Josephine's strange behaviour of the night before. It was an explanation that squared with the facts—at any rate, according to the speaker's point of view—for Radmore told the famous vet that the cat, upset by the sight of a strange dog, had flown at a lady and bitten her. He added frankly that the doctor had suggested that the animal should be kept under observation, and then he managed to convey that money was no object, as the cat was a cherished pet sent from France during the War.

Everything was soon arranged, for Mr. Trotman was a man of few words. Radmore gave his own name and the address of Old Place, and then, just before leaving the house, he put down a L5 note on the table.

The sturdy, grizzled old man took up the note and held it out to his new client. "I'd rather not take this, sir, if you don't mind," he said a little gruffly. "We'll send you in a proper bill in due course. You needn't be afraid. The cat shall have every care, and of course, if things should go wrong—you know what I mean—I'll at once give you a telephone call. But, as far as I can tell, you're right, and it was just fear for her young made her behave so." He turned to his wife. "Now then, mother, you just get back to bed! I'll see to these gentlemen, and to poor pussy."

They shook hands with Mrs. Trotman, and then the famous vet took them down the trellised path and stood in the doorway till they got into the car.

"I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Trotman," Radmore called out heartily. "I'd like to come over here one day, and go over your place."

As they raced up towards the Downs, Radmore suddenly turned to Timmy: "The more time goes on, the more it's borne in on me that there's nothing like the old people of the old country." And as the boy, surprised, said nothing for once, he went on, "I hope that the stock won't ever give out."

"How d'you mean?"

"Well, take those two people, that man and woman. We get them out of their warm, comfortable bed in the middle of the night, they knowing nothing about us, except that we bring a cat which may be mad; and yet they take it all in the day's work; they're civil, kindly, obliging—and the man won't take money he hasn't earned! I call that splendid, Timmy. You might almost go the world over before you'd find a couple like that—anywhere but in England."

* * * * *

They drove on and on, and then all at once, Radmore, glancing down to his left, saw that Timmy had fallen asleep. Now Timmy, asleep, looked like an angelic cherub, and so very different from his usual alert, inquisitive, little awake self. And there welled up in Radmore's heart the strangest feeling of tenderness—not only for Timmy but for the whole of the Tosswill family—not only for the Tosswill family, but for the whole of this sturdy, quiet, apparently unemotional world of England to which he had come back.

The human mind and brain work in mysterious ways. Radmore will never know, to the day of his death, the effect that this curious night drive had on the whole of his future life. He was not a man to quote poetry, even to himself, but to-night there came into his mind some words he had heard muttered by a corporal in Gallipoli:

"What do they know of England Who only England know?"

When he had left his homeland, now nearly ten years ago, he had been in a bitter mood. It had seemed to him that his own country was rejecting him with scorn. But now his heart swelled proudly at the thought of the old country—of all that she had endured since then. He had thought England altered and very much for the worse, when he was in London on his two brief "leaves" during the War, but now he knew how unchanged his country was—in the things that really matter....

When he had come back for good, this summer, he had looked forward to an easy, selfish life—the sort of life certain men whom he had envied as a boy used to lead before the war.

Radmore knew, as every man who has lived to the age of thirty-two must know, that marriage brings with it certain cares, responsibilities, and troubles, and so he had deliberately made up his mind to avoid marriage, though he had been conscious the while that if he fell violently in love, then, perhaps, half knowing all the time that he was a fool, he might find himself pushed into marriage with some foolish girl, or what was perchance more likely, with a pretty widow.

To-night he realised with a sort of shame that there were moments—he was glad that they were only moments—when he felt uneasily yet strongly attracted to Enid Crofton, and that though he knew how selfish, how self-absorbed and, yes, how cruel she could be. For well he knew she had been cruel to her elderly husband. He was sorry now that she had come to Beechfield. She had become an irritating, disturbing element in his life.

Radmore had looked at every eligible property within a radius of twenty miles of Old Place, but though some of them did not fall far short of the ideal he had in his mind, he hadn't felt as if he wanted any of them. They were too trim, too new—in a word, too suburban. Even the very old houses had been transformed by their owners much as The Trellis House had been transformed, into something to suit modern taste. He told himself that he must begin looking again—looking in real dead earnest, going farther afield.

Absorbed in his thoughts, he had driven on and on, almost mechanically, till suddenly they came to four cross-roads. He drew up under a sign-post, jumped out and struck a match, and as he read the painted words he realised, with vexation, that he had gone a good bit out of his way. There was nothing for it now but to go on till they struck the Portsmouth Road. It was the quietest hour of the twenty-four, and it was very unlikely they would meet with anyone who could put them right.

And then, while going up a lane, which he knew to be at any rate in the right direction, he came to a park gate. Just within was a lodge, and in one of the windows of the lodge there shone a light. Again Radmore stopped the car and jumped out, Timmy still heavily asleep.

He went up to the door of the lodge and rapped with his knuckles. It opened and revealed a young woman, fully dressed. "What do you want?" she exclaimed, in a frightened voice.

"I've lost my way," he said, "and seeing a light in your window, I ventured to knock. I've no idea where I am—I want to get to Beechfield."

"Beechfield? Why, you're nigh forty miles from there," she said, surprised.

"Can you tell me how I can get on to the Portsmouth Road?"

"Aye, I think I could do that; but stop your engine, please—I've a little girl in here as is very ill."

He ran out and did what she asked. Then he came back, and as she took him into her tiny living-room, he saw that there were tears rolling down her tired face.

"Is your child very ill?" he asked.

She nodded. "Doctor says if she can get through the next two days she may be all right."

"Is your husband with you?"

She shook her head. "I'm a widow, sir; my husband was killed in the War. I'm only caretaking here. When the house up there is sold, they'll turn me out."

"I'm looking for a country house. Perhaps I'll come over and see it one day. Is it an old house?"

"Well," she said vaguely, "it isn't a new house, sir. It's a mighty fine place, and they do say it's going dirt cheap." And then she added slowly, "There's a map hanging in the kitchen. It was hanging up yonder in the servants' hall but I brought it down here, as so many people asks the way."

It was an old-fashioned country road map, and Radmore, bending down, saw in a moment where he was, and the best way home; and then feeling in a queer kind of mood, a mood in which a man may do a strange and unexpected thing, he took out of his pocket the L5 he had offered to Mr. Trotman.

"Look here," he said, "I'd like you just to take this and get your little girl whatever you think necessary when she's on the mend. She'll want a lot of care, eh?"

Twice the woman opened her mouth, and found she couldn't speak.

He held out his hand, and she squeezed it with her thin, work-worn fingers. "I do hope God will bless you, sir!" she said. And he went back to the car, feeling oddly cheered.

* * * * *

It was past five when Radmore and Timmy crept like burglars through one of the back doors of Old Place. He sent the boy straight up to bed, but he himself felt hopelessly wide awake, so he went out of doors again, into Janet's delightful scented garden, and tramped up and down a bit to get warm. Suddenly he knew that he was hungry. Why shouldn't he go into the scullery and brew himself a cup of tea?

As he went into the kitchen, he saw on the table a kettle, a spirit stove, a cup and saucer, tea caddy and teapot, even a thermos full of hot water—everything ready to make an early cup of tea. He left the thermos alone, and filled up the kettle at the scullery sink.

Radmore was still very much of an old campaigner. Still it was a long time since he had made himself a cup of tea, and he became a little impatient for the cold water took a long time to boil.

The kettle was just beginning to sing, when the door which led to the flight of stairs connecting the scullery with the upper floors of the house opened quietly, and Betty appeared—Betty, in a becoming blue dressing-gown, which intensified the peachy clearness of her skin, and the glint of pale gold in the shadowed fairness of her hair. Morning was Betty's hour. As the day wore on, she was apt to become fagged and worried, especially since Nanna's accident.

Just for a moment she looked very much taken aback, then she smiled, "I've come down to make a cup of tea for Nanna."

"So I suppose, but you must have a cup first. See, I'm making some for you."

"Are you?" She tried not to show the surprise she felt.

"While you're having it, we'll make Nanna a cup of tea with the water in the thermos there. But where's the milk?"

He saw her face from merry become sad. "I always save some milk for Josephine," she said. "I'll go and get it now. But we mustn't use it all; I must save some for that poor cat."

"You'll have to go a long way to give milk to Josephine," he observed.

She looked at him, startled, and going to the scullery door, glanced quickly at the corner where stood the now empty basket.

"Where is she?" she exclaimed—and her whole face lightened. "Oh, Godfrey, have you managed to hide her away?"

He nodded. "Yes, ever so many miles away, where no one will find her."

"What do you mean?" She could not conceal her astonishment—her astonishment and her intense relief.

"Timmy and I spirited her away," he went on, "to a cat's paradise where she's going to be kept under observation."

"Won't Dr. O'Farrell be very angry?"

"I don't think he'll mind as much as he'll pretend to. The moment he was told about her kittens he knew that the cat wasn't mad at all."

"The person who will be angry," exclaimed Betty, "is Mrs. Crofton! I thought it horribly cruel of her to say what she did last night."

"It was rather vindictive," he said reflectively. "On the other hand, you must remember that she'd had an awful shock. I don't wonder she felt angry with Josephine, eh?" He looked a little quizzically, a little deprecatingly, over at Betty.

"Still it seemed so—so unnecessary that she should ask for the cat to be killed." Betty was now bustling about the kitchen with a heightened colour.

Radmore poured out a cup of tea. "Now then," he said, "do come and sit down quietly, and take your tea, Betty." Rather to his surprise, she meekly obeyed.

Presently she asked him, "But why have you got up so early?"

And then he told her the story of his and Timmy's night expedition, ending up with: "I intend going round to Dr. O'Farrell's house about eight o'clock. It wouldn't be fair to let the old fellow come down here to indulge his sporting instincts, eh?"

To that Betty made no answer, and as the water was now boiling she went across to the dresser and brought a clean cup and saucer. "Now then, Godfrey, this cup is for you. Nanna can wait a little longer for hers."

He sat down opposite to her, and into both their minds there came the thought that if they had married and gone out to Australia they would have often sat thus together in the early morning.

And then, when Nanna's cup of tea was at last ready, together with some nice thin bread and butter cut, he asked, "Can't I carry the tray up for you?"

She shook her head, smiling.

"I suppose you'll be down again soon? Isn't there anything else I can help you with?"

But this time Betty shook her head even more decidedly than before.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I've got to make Nanna comfortable for the day, and it's a long business, for she's dreadfully particular. As a matter of fact, Rosamund and Dolly will be down before I am. They'll start everything going for breakfast. They've been very good lately, you know! Perhaps you'd like to give them a hand?"

He looked at her hard. There was just the flicker of a mischievous smile on her face.

"I suppose I ought to help them," he said without enthusiasm. "But I'll go and have a bath now. You'll let me be your scullion when you're getting lunch ready, eh, Betty?" He added hastily, "I think Timmy ought to stay in bed all day to-day. You will let me take the place of Timmy, won't you, Betty?"