it all, there was the mystery of the shuttered
house. More than once I was inclined to question him upon this last
account, but his manner did not promise confidences, and I said
nothing. At last he perceived my inattention.

"I will repeat all this to-morrow," he said grimly. "You are, no
doubt, tired. I cannot, I am afraid, house you, for, as you see, I
have no room; but I have a young friend who happens by good luck to
stay this night on Tresco, and no doubt he will oblige me." Thereupon
he led me to a cottage on the outskirts of Dolphin Town, and of all in
that village nearest to the sea.

"My friend," said he, "is named Ginver Wyeth, and, though he comes
from these parts, he does not live here, being a school-master on the
mainland. His mother has died lately, and he is come on that account."

Mr. Wyeth received me hospitably, but with a certain pedantry of
speech which somewhat surprised me, seeing that his parents were
common fisherfolk. He readily explained the matter, however, over a
pipe, when Mr. Lovyes had left us. "I owe everything to Mrs. Lovyes,"
he said. "She took me when a boy, taught me something herself, and
sent me thereafter, at her own charges, to a school in Falmouth."

"Mrs. Lovyes!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," he continued, and, bending forward, lowered his voice. "You
went up to Merchant's Point, you say? Then you passed Crudge's
Folly--a house of two storeys with a well in the garden."

"Yes, yes!" I said.

"She lives there," said he.

"Behind those shutters!" I cried.

"For twenty years she has lived in the midst of us, and no one has
seen her during all that time. Not even Robert Lovyes. Aye, she has
lived behind the shutters."

There he stopped. I waited, thinking that in a little he would take up
his tale, but he did not, and I had to break the silence.

"I had not heard that Mr. Robert was ever married," I said as
carelessly as I might.

"Nor was he," replied Mr. Wyeth. "Mrs. Lovyes is the wife of John.
The house at Merchant's Point is hers, and there twenty years ago she
lived."

His words caught my breath away, so little did I expect them.

"The wife of John Lovyes!" I stammered, "but--" And I told him how I
had seen Robert Lovyes carry his basket up the path.

"Yes," said Wyeth. "Twice a day Robert draws water for her at the
well, and once a day he brings her food. It is in his house, too, that
she lives--Crudge's Folly, that was his name for it, and the name
clings. But,