d accompanying her as she
went. She would stop and rub the side of her nose with her thumb,
considering. In the house, when there was no fear of callers, she wore
large loose slippers that tap-tapped as she went. In the evenings she
sat in Paul's study all amongst the Cornhills, The Temple Bars, and The
Bible Concordances. They were very cosy and happy, and she talked
incessantly. For some reason she did not dare to ask him whether he
were not happier now that Maggie was away. She did not dare. There was
not the complete confidence that there had been. Paul was strange a
little, bewitched by Maggie's strangeness ... There was something there
that Grace did not understand. So she said nothing, but she tried to
convey to him, in the peculiar warmth of her good-night kiss, what she
felt.

Then Maggie returned. She came back in her black clothes and with her
pale face. Her aunt had died. She was more alone even than before. She
was very quiet, and agreed to everything that Grace said. Nevertheless,
although she agreed, she was more antagonistic than she had been. She
had now something that intensely preoccupied her. Grace could see that
she was always thinking about something that had nothing to do with
Skeaton or Paul or the house. She was more absent-minded than ever,
forgot everything, liked best to sit in her bedroom all alone.

"Oh, she's mad!" said Grace. "She's really mad! Just fancy if she
should go right off her head!" Grace was now so desperately frightened
that she lay awake at night, sweating, listening to every sound. "If
she should come and murder me one night," she thought. Another thought
she had was: "It's just as though she sees some one all the time who
isn't there."

Then came 13th March, that dreadful day that would be never forgotten
by Grace so long as she lived. During the whole of the past week
Skeaton had been delivered up to a tempest of wind and rain. The High
Street, emptied of human beings, had glittered and swayed under the
sweeping storm. The Skeaton sea, possessing suddenly a life of its own,
had stormed upon the Skeaton promenade, and worried and lashed and
soaked that hideous structure to within an inch of its unnatural life.
Behind the town the woods had swayed and creaked, funeral black against
the grey thick sky. Across the folds the rain fell in slanting sheets
with the sibilant hiss of relentless power and resolve.

After luncheon, on this day the 13th, Maggie disappeared into the