kept
control of her voice, and asked if she should bring some more coffee.

"Ah, yes! You'd all like some coffee, wouldn't you?" says Mr. Parable.
Miss Bulstrode did not reply, but Mr. Quincey said he was cold and
would like it. It was a nasty night, with a thin rain.

"Thank you, sir," says cook, and we went out together.

Cottages are only cottages, and if people in the parlour persist in
talking loudly, people in the kitchen can't very well help overhearing.

There was a good deal of talk about "fourteen days," which Mr. Parable
said he was going to do himself, and which Miss Dorton said he mustn't,
because, if he did, it would be a victory for the enemies of humanity.
Mr. Parable said something about "humanity," which I didn't rightly
hear, but, whatever it was, it started Miss Dorton crying; and Miss
Bulstrode called Mr. Parable a "blind Samson," who had had his hair cut
by a designing minx who had been hired to do it.

It was all French to me, but cook was drinking in every word, and when
she returned from taking them in their coffee she made no bones about
it, but took up her place at the door with her ear to the keyhole.

It was Mr. Quincey who got them all quiet, and then he began to explain
things. It seemed that if they could only find a certain gentleman and
persuade him to come forward and acknowledge that he began a row, that
then all would be well. Mr. Quincey would be fined forty shillings,
and Mr. Parable's name would never appear. Failing that, Mr. Parable,
according to Mr. Quincey, could do his fourteen days himself.

"I've told you once," says Mr. Parable, "and I tell you again, that I
don't know the man's name, and can't give it you."

"We are not asking you to," says Mr. Quincey. "You give us the name of
your tango partner, and we'll do the rest."

I could see cook's face; I had got a bit interested myself, and we were
both close to the door. She hardly seemed to be breathing.

"I am sorry," says Mr. Parable, speaking very deliberate-like, "but I
am not going to have her name dragged into this business."

"It wouldn't be," says Mr. Quincey. "All we want to get out of her is
the name and address of the gentleman who was so anxious to see her
home."

"Who was he?" says Miss Bulstrode. "Her husband?"

"No," says Mr. Parable; "he wasn't."

"Then who was he?" says Miss Bulstrode. "He must have been something
to her--fiance?"

"I am going to do the fourteen days myself," says Mr