s around were
still; and in the hushed house the master slept.

But on the edge of his wooden chair in the silence of his pantry the old
manservant read, "This bird is a voracious feeder," and he paused,
blinking his eyes and nervously puckering his lips, for he had partially
understood....

Mrs. Pendyce was crossing the fields. She had on her prettiest frock, of
smoky-grey crepe, and she looked a little anxiously at the sky. Gathered
in the west a coming storm was chasing the whitened sunlight. Against
its purple the trees stood blackish-green. Everything was very still, not
even the poplars stirred, yet the purple grew with sinister, unmoving
speed. Mrs. Pendyce hurried, grasping her skirts in both her hands, and
she noticed that the cattle were all grouped under the hedge.

'What dreadful-looking clouds!' she thought. 'I wonder if I shall get to
the Firs before it comes?' But though her frock made her hasten, her
heart made her stand still, it fluttered so, and was so full. Suppose he
were not sober! She remembered those little burning eyes, which had
frightened her so the night he dined at Worsted Skeynes and fell out of
his dogcart afterwards. A kind of legendary malevolence clung about his
image.

'Suppose he is horrid to me!' she thought.

She could not go back now; but she wished--how she wished!--that it were
over. A heat-drop splashed her glove. She crossed the lane and opened
the Firs gate. Throwing frightened glances at the sky, she hastened down
the drive. The purple was couched like a pall on the treetops, and these
had begun to sway and moan as though struggling and weeping at their
fate. Some splashes of warm rain were falling. A streak of lightning
tore the firmament. Mrs. Pendyce rushed into the porch covering her ears
with her hands.

'How long will it last?' she thought. 'I'm so frightened!'...

A very old manservant, whose face was all puckers, opened the door
suddenly to peer out at the storm, but seeing Mrs. Pendyce, he peered at
her instead.

"Is Captain Bellew at home?"

"Yes, ma'am. The Captain's in the study. We don't use the drawing-room
now. Nasty storm coming on, ma'am--nasty storm. Will you please to sit
down a minute, while I let the Captain know?"

The hall was low and dark; the whole house was low and dark, and smelled
a little of woodrot. Mrs. Pendyce did not sit down, but stood under an
arrangement of three foxes' heads, supporting two hunting-crops, wi