once more. In a few minutes his hardy nerves had recovered
themselves--he could laugh over the remembrance of the strange
impression that had been produced on him. "Frightened for the first time
in my life," he thought--"and that by an old woman! It's time I went
into training again, when things have come to this!"

He looked at his watch. It was close on the luncheon hour up at the
house; and he had not decided yet what to do about his letter to Anne.
He resolved to decide, then and there.

The woman--the dumb woman, with the stony face and the horrid
eyes--reappeared in his thoughts, and got in the way of his decision.
Pooh! some crazed old servant, who might once have been cook; who was
kept out of charity now. Nothing more important than that. No more of
her! no more of her!

He laid himself down on the grass, and gave his mind to the serious
question. How to address Anne as "Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?" and how to
make sure of her receiving the letter?

The dumb old woman got in his way again.

He closed his eyes impatiently, and tried to shut her out in a darkness
of his own making.

The woman showed herself through the darkness. He saw her, as if he
had just asked her a question, writing on her slate. What she wrote he
failed to make out. It was all over in an instant. He started up, with
a feeling of astonishment at himself--and, at the same moment his brain
cleared with the suddenness of a flash of light. He saw his way, without
a conscious effort on his own part, through the difficulty that had
troubled him. Two envelopes, of course: an inner one, unsealed, and
addressed to "Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth;" an outer one, sealed, and
addressed to "Mrs. Silvester:" and there was the problem solved! Surely
the simplest problem that had ever puzzled a stupid head.

Why had he not seen it before? Impossible to say.

How came he to have seen it now?

The dumb old woman reappeared in his thoughts--as if the answer to the
question lay in something connected with _her._

He became alarmed about himself, for the first time in his life. Had
this persistent impression, produced by nothing but a crazy old woman,
any thing to do with the broken health which the surgeon had talked
about? Was his head on the turn? Or had he smoked too much on an empty
stomach, and gone too long (after traveling all night) without his
customary drink of ale?

He left the garden to put that latter theory to the test forthwith. The
betting wo