ays took pleasure in entering the
house from the rear, without a sound. She was now coming into the
parlour with the tray for high tea. No wonder that Rachel started.
Here was the first onset of the outer world.

Mrs. Tams came in, already perfectly transformed from a mother,
mother-in-law, and grandmother into a parlour-maid with no human tie.

"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Tams."

"So ye've got back, ma'am!"

While Mrs. Tams laid the table, with many grunts and creakings of the
solid iron in her stays, Rachel sat on a chair by the fire, trying to
seem in a casual, dreamy mood, cogitating upon what she must say.

"Will mester be down for tea, ma'am?" asked Mrs. Tams, who had
excusably assumed that Louis was upstairs.

And Rachel, forced now to defend, instead of attacking, blurted out--

"Oh! By the way, I was forgetting; Mr. Fores will not be in for tea."

Mrs. Tams, forgetting she was a parlour-maid, vociferated in amazement
and protest--

"Not be in for tea, ma'am? And him as he is!" All her lately gathering
suspicions were strengthened and multiplied.

Rachel had to continue as she had begun: "He's been called away on
very urgent business. He simply had to go."

Mrs. Tams, intermitting her duties, stood still and gazed at Rachel.

"Was it far, ma'am, as he had for to go?"

A simple question, and yet how difficult to answer plausibly!

"Yes--rather."

"I suppose he'll be back to-night, ma'am?"

"Oh yes, of course!" replied Rachel, in absurd haste. "But if he
isn't, I'm not to worry, he said. But he fully expects to be. We
scarcely had time to talk, you see. He was getting ready when I came
in."

"A telegram, ma'am, I suppose it was?"

"Yes.... That is, I don't know whether there was a telegram first, or
not. But he was called for, you see. A cab. I couldn't have let him go
off walking, not as he is."

Mrs. Tarns gave a gesture.

"I suppose I mun alter this 'ere table, then," said she, putting a cup
and saucer back on the tray.

"Idiot! Idiot!" Rachel described herself to herself, when Mrs.
Tams, very much troubled, had left the room. "'By the way, I was
forgetting'--couldn't I have told her better than that? She's known
for a week that there's been something wrong, and now she's certainly
guessed there's something dreadfully wrong.... Just look at all the
silly lies I've told already! What will it be like to-morrow--and
Monday? I wonder what my face looked like while I was telling her!"

She rus