once. I
have an article to finish before midnight."

Aunt Anne smiled gently: "No, I'm not tired, thank you. And what has
happened while I have been away?"

"I have been away too, as you know," said Mr. Magnus, "but I understand
that your sister has been very busy--quite a number--"

Aunt Elizabeth said in her trembling voice: "No. No--Anne--I assure
you. Nothing at all. As you know, the Bible Committee wanted to discuss
the new scheme. Last Tuesday. Mr. Warlock, Mr. Simms, young Holliday,
Miss Martin, Mary Hearst. And Sophie Dunn. AND Mr. Turner. Nothing at
all. It was a wet day. Last Tuesday afternoon."

"Your mother is quite well, I hope, Mr. Warlock?" said Aunt Anne,
turning to the young man. "Yes--she's all right," he answered. "Just
the same. Amy wants you to go and see her. I was to give you the
message, if you could manage to-morrow sometime; or she'd come here if
it's more convenient. There's something important, she says, but I
don't suppose it's important in the least. You know what she is."

He spoke, laughing. His eyes wandered all round the room and suddenly
settled on Maggie with a startled stare, as though she were the last
person whom he had expected to find there.

"Yes. To-morrow afternoon, perhaps--about three, if that would suit
her. How is Amy?"

"Oh, she's all right. As eager to run the world as ever--and she never
will run it so long as she shows her cards as obviously as she does. I
tell her so. But it's no good. She doesn't listen to me, you know."

Aunt Anne, with the incomparable way that she had, brushed all this
very gently aside. She simply said: "I'm glad that she's well." Then
she turned to the other gentleman:

"Your writing's quite satisfactory, I hope, Mr. Magnus."

She spoke as though it had been a cold or a toothache.

He smiled his melancholy ironical smile. "I go on, you know, Miss
Cardinal. After all, it's my bread and butter."

Maggie, looking at him, knew that this was exactly the way that he did
not regard it, and felt a sudden sympathy towards him with his thin
hair, his large spectacles and his shabby clothes. But her look at him
was the last thing of which she was properly conscious. The wall beyond
the fireplace, that had seemed before to her dim and dark, now suddenly
appeared to lurch forward, to bulge before her eyes; the floor with its
old, rather shabby carpet rose on a slant as though it was rocked by an
unsteady sea; worst of all, the large black cat s