d her was gone to a
mere nothing. In the hall she met a slender woman wearing a silk dress
of that peculiar black which in sunlight proclaims itself to have once
seen better days as a brown, and days even better than those as a
lavender, green, or blue.

'Menlove,' said the lady, 'did you notice if any gentleman observed and
followed me when I left the hotel to go for a walk this evening?'

The lady's-maid, thus suddenly pulled up in a night forage after lovers,
put a hand to her forehead to show that there was no mistake about her
having begun to meditate on receiving orders to that effect, and said at
last, 'You once told me, ma'am, if you recollect, that when you were
dressed, I was not to go staring out of the window after you as if you
were a doll I had just manufactured and sent round for sale.'

'Yes, so I did.'

'So I didn't see if anybody followed you this evening.'

'Then did you hear any gentleman arrive here by the late train last
night?'

'O no, ma'am--how could I?' said Mrs. Menlove--an exclamation which was
more apposite than her mistress suspected, considering that the speaker,
after retiring from duty, had slipped down her dark skirt to reveal a
light, puffed, and festooned one, put on a hat and feather, together with
several pennyweights of metal in the form of rings, brooches, and
earrings--all in a time whilst one could count a hundred--and enjoyed
half-an-hour of prime courtship by an honourable young waiter of the
town, who had proved constant as the magnet to the pole for the space of
the day and a half that she had known him.

Going at once upstairs, Ethelberta ran down the passage, and after some
hesitation softly opened the door of the sitting-room in the best suite
of apartments that the inn could boast of.

In this room sat an elderly lady writing by the light of two candles with
green shades. Well knowing, as it seemed, who the intruder was, she
continued her occupation, and her visitor advanced and stood beside the
table. The old lady wore her spectacles low down her cheek, her glance
being depressed to about the slope of her straight white nose in order to
look through them. Her mouth was pursed up to almost a youthful shape as
she formed the letters with her pen, and a slight move of the lip
accompanied every downstroke. There were two large antique rings on her
forefinger, against which the quill rubbed in moving backwards and
forwards, thereby causing a secondary noise riv