uddenly opened--and who do you think stood before me?"

"Was it somebody I know?"

"Yes."

"Man? or woman?"

"It was Hester Dethridge."

"Hester Dethridge!"

"Yes. Dressed just as usual, and looking just as usual--with her slate
hanging at her side."

"Astonishing! Where did I last see her? At the Windygates station, to
be sure--going to London, after she had left my sister-in-law's service.
Has she accepted another place--without letting me know first, as I told
her?"

"She is living at Fulham."

"In service?"

"No. As mistress of her own house."

"What! Hester Dethridge in possession of a house of her own? Well! well!
why shouldn't she have a rise in the world like other people? Did she
let you in?"

"She stood for some time looking at me, in that dull strange way that
she has. The servants at Windygates always said she was not in her right
mind--and you will say, Sir Patrick, when you hear what happened, that
the servants were not mistaken. She must be mad. I said, 'Don't you
remember me?' She lifted her slate, and wrote, 'I remember you, in a
dead swoon at Windygates House.' I was quite unaware that she had been
present when I fainted in the library. The discovery startled me--or
that dreadful, dead-cold look that she has in her eyes startled me--I
don't know which. I couldn't speak to her just at first. She wrote on
her slate again--the strangest question--in these words: 'I said, at the
time, brought to it by a man. Did I say true?' If the question had been
put in the usual way, by any body else, I should have considered it too
insolent to be noticed. Can you understand my answering it, Sir Patrick?
I can't understand it myself, now--and yet I did answer. She forced me
to it with her stony eyes. I said 'yes.'"

"Did all this take place at the door?"

"At the door."

"When did she let you in?"

"The next thing she did was to let me in. She took me by the arm, in
a rough way, and drew me inside the door, and shut it. My nerves are
broken; my courage is gone. I crept with cold when she touched me. She
dropped my arm. I stood like a child, waiting for what it pleased her to
say or do next. She rested her two hands on her sides, and took a long
look at me. She made a horrid dumb sound--not as if she was angry;
more, if such a thing could be, as if she was satisfied--pleased even,
I should have said, if it had been any body but Hester Dethridge. Do you
understand it?"

"Not yet. Let me get neare