l! My word!
What a blessing it is she has made such friends with Maggie!"

Mrs Hamps had the peculiar gift, which developed into ever-increasing
perfection as her hair grew whiter, of being able to express ideas by
means of words which had no relation to them at all. Within three
minutes, by three different remarks whose occult message no stranger
could have understood but which forced itself with unpleasant clearness
upon Edwin, Mrs Hamps had conveyed, "Janet Orgreave only cultivates
Maggie because Maggie is the sister of Edwin Clayhanger."

"You're all very devoted to that child," she said, meaning, "There is
something mysterious in that quarter which sooner or later is bound to
come out." And the meaning was so clear that Edwin was intimidated.
What did she guess? Did she know anything? To-night Auntie Hamps was
displaying her gift at its highest.

"I don't know that Maggie's so desperately keen on the infant!" he said.

"She's not like you about him, that's sure!" Mrs Hamps admitted. And
she went on, in a tone that was only superficially casual, "I wonder the
mother doesn't come down to him!"

Not `his' mother--`the' mother. Odd, the effect of that trifle! Mrs
Hamps was a great artist in phrasing.

"Oh!" said Edwin. "It's not serious enough for that."

"Well, I'm not so sure," Auntie Hamps gravely replied. "The Vicar is
dead."

The emphasis which she put on these words was tremendous.

"Is he," Edwin stammered. "But what's that got to do with it?"

He tried to be condescending towards her absurdly superstitious
assumption that the death of the Vicar of Saint Peter's could increase
the seriousness of George's case. And he feebly succeeded in being
condescending. Nevertheless he could not meet his auntie's gaze without
self-consciousness. For her emphasis had been double, and he knew it.
It had implied, secondly, that the death of the Vicar was an event
specially affecting Edwin's household. The rough sketch of a romance
between the Vicar and Maggie had never been completed into a picture,
but on the other hand it had never been destroyed. The Vicar and Maggie
had been supposed to be still interested in each other, despite the
Vicar's priestliness, which latterly had perhaps grown more marked, just
as his church had grown more ritualistic. It was a strange affair,
thin, elusive; but an affair it was. The Vicar and Maggie had seldom
met of recent years, they had never--so far as anyone kne