rectly,
and that was in writing, was . . . "

She glanced aside, saw Mr. Blunt returning from the hall and added
rapidly in a lowered voice,

"His mother."

The bright, mechanical smile of Mr. Blunt gleamed at us right down the
room, but he didn't, as it were, follow it in his body. He swerved to
the nearest of the two big fireplaces and finding some cigarettes on the
mantelpiece remained leaning on his elbow in the warmth of the bright
wood fire. I noticed then a bit of mute play. The heiress of Henry
Allegre, who could secure neither obscurity nor any other alleviation to
that invidious position, looked as if she would speak to Blunt from a
distance; but in a moment the confident eagerness of her face died out as
if killed by a sudden thought. I didn't know then her shrinking from all
falsehood and evasion; her dread of insincerity and disloyalty of every
kind. But even then I felt that at the very last moment her being had
recoiled before some shadow of a suspicion. And it occurred to me, too,
to wonder what sort of business Mr. Blunt could have had to transact with
our odious visitor, of a nature so urgent as to make him run out after
him into the hall? Unless to beat him a little with one of the sticks
that were to be found there? White hair so much like an expensive wig
could not be considered a serious protection. But it couldn't have been
that. The transaction, whatever it was, had been much too quiet. I must
say that none of us had looked out of the window and that I didn't know
when the man did go or if he was gone at all. As a matter of fact he was
already far away; and I may just as well say here that I never saw him
again in my life. His passage across my field of vision was like that of
other figures of that time: not to be forgotten, a little fantastic,
infinitely enlightening for my contempt, darkening for my memory which
struggles still with the clear lights and the ugly shadows of those
unforgotten days.

CHAPTER IV

It was past four o'clock before I left the house, together with Mills.
Mr. Blunt, still in his riding costume, escorted us to the very door. He
asked us to send him the first fiacre we met on our way to town. "It's
impossible to walk in this get-up through the streets," he remarked, with
his brilliant smile.

At this point I propose to transcribe some notes I made at the time in
little black books which I have hunted up in the litter of the past; very
cheap, co