t not see; but he ... He was my aunt's solicitor. He was
quite right; my aunt _was_ breaking up, she had declined visibly in the
few hours that I had been away from her. She had been doing business
with this man, had altered her will, had seen Mr. Gurnard; and, in some
way had received a shock that seemed to have deprived her of all
volition. She sat with her head leaning back, her eyes closed, the lines
of her face all seeming to run downward.

"It is obvious to me that arrangements ought to be made for your return
to England," the lawyer said, "whatever engagements Miss Granger or Mr.
Etchingham Granger or even Mr. Gurnard may have made."

I wondered vaguely what the devil Mr. Gurnard could have to say in the
matter, and then Miss Granger herself came into the room.

"They want me," my aunt said in a low voice, "they have been persuading
me ... to go back ... to Etchingham, I think you said, Meredith."

I became conscious that I wanted to return to England, wanted it very
much, wanted to be out of this; to get somewhere where there was
stability and things that one could understand. Everything here seemed
to be in a mist, with the ground trembling underfoot.

"Why ..." Miss Granger's verdict came, "we can go when you like.
To-morrow."

Things immediately began to shape themselves on these unexpected lines,
a sort of bustle of departure to be in the air. I was employed to
conduct the lawyer as far as the porter's lodge, a longish traverse. He
beguiled the way by excusing himself for hurrying back to London.

"I might have been of use; in these hurried departures there are
generally things. But, you will understand, Mr.--Mr. Etchingham; at a
time like this I could hardly spare the hours that it cost me to come
over. You would be astonished what a deal of extra work it gives and how
far-spreading the evil is. People seem to have gone mad. Even I have
been astonished."

"I had no idea," I said.

"Of course not, of course not--no one had. But, unless I am much
mistaken--_much_--there will have to be an enquiry, and people will be
very lucky who have had nothing to do with it ..."

I gathered that things were in a bad way, over there as over here; that
there were scandals and a tremendous outcry for purification in the
highest places. I saw the man get into his fiacre and took my way back
across the court-yard rather slowly, pondering over the part I was to
fill in the emigration, wondering how far events had con