ion.
Fish--is that his name--seems to have played it pretty low down on
you." He gathered up his bridle and nodded to her with intent.

"Good afternoon, Miss Pond," he said. "Sorry to make trouble, but I
couldn't leave you in the dark about a thing like this."

Mary walked on to the churchyard in considerable bewilderment. With
the character of a patient who came under her care she had no
particular concern; a nurse must be as little discriminating as
death. But she did not like the story; it troubled and offended her--
its connexion with matters that interested the police, and all its
suggestion that she and her father were being used as a means of
hiding, touched her with a sense of disgust. It did not occur to her
to doubt Harry Wylde; he had been altogether too circumstantial to
be doubted.

She reached the low wall that separated the churchyard from the road.
The old graces, with their tombstones leaning awry, like gapped,
uneven teeth, reminded her of her errand, and soon she saw Smith. He
had found himself a seat where an old tomb with railings and monument
was overrun with ground ivy; he sat among the coarse green of it,
staring before him with his chin propped on one hand. All the glory
of the western sky was beyond him; his profile stood out against it
like a sharp silhouette. Mary stopped to look, and for the time
forgot the wretched story she had just heard. The man was as
motionless as the stone on which he sat-still with such a stillness
as one sees not in the living. But it was not that which held. Mary
gazing; it came suddenly to her that in his attitude there was
something apt; and significant, something with a meaning, requiring
only a key to interpret it. She wondered about it, vaguely, and
without framing words for her thoughts it occurred to her that the
stillness, the attitude, the mute surrender that spoke in every
contour of the silhouetted figure, the very posture of rest, bespoke
contentment, tile welcome of relief which one feels on reaching one's
own place, one's familiar atmosphere, one's due haven.

Minutes passed, and still she stood gazing; then, as though restive
under the impressions that invaded her, she moved forward and entered
the churchyard. It was not till she stood before him that Smith was
aware of her; with a wrinkling of his brow and a sigh, he came back
to his surroundings. Mary saw and noted how the raptness of his face
gave way to its usual feebleness as he roused hims