nge sign for Hampton Court, and gave it a name that I
made up out of my head.'

The Darnells avoided one another's eyes as they sat at breakfast the
next morning. The air had lightened in the night, for rain had fallen at
dawn; and there was a bright blue sky, with vast white clouds rolling
across it from the south-west, and a fresh and joyous wind blew in at
the open window; the mists had vanished. And with the mists there seemed
to have vanished also the sense of strange things that had possessed
Mary and her husband the night before; and as they looked out into the
clear light they could scarcely believe that the one had spoken and the
other had listened a few hours before to histories very far removed from
the usual current of their thoughts and of their lives. They glanced
shyly at one another, and spoke of common things, of the question
whether Alice would be corrupted by the insidious Mrs. Murry, or whether
Mrs. Darnell would be able to persuade the girl that the old woman must
be actuated by the worst motives.

'And I think, if I were you,' said Darnell, as he went out, 'I should
step over to the stores and complain of their meat. That last piece of
beef was very far from being up to the mark--full of sinew.'

III

It might have been different in the evening, and Darnell had matured a
plan by which he hoped to gain much. He intended to ask his wife if she
would mind having only one gas, and that a good deal lowered, on the
pretext that his eyes were tired with work; he thought many things might
happen if the room were dimly lit, and the window opened, so that they
could sit and watch the night, and listen to the rustling murmur of the
tree on the lawn. But his plans were made in vain, for when he got to
the garden gate his wife, in tears, came forth to meet him.

'Oh, Edward,' she began, 'such a dreadful thing has happened! I never
liked him much, but I didn't think he would ever do such awful things.'

'What do you mean? Who are you talking about? What has happened? Is it
Alice's young man?'

'No, no. But come in, dear. I can see that woman opposite watching us:
she's always on the look out.'

'Now, what is it?' said Darnell, as they sat down to tea. 'Tell me,
quick! you've quite frightened me.'

'I don't know how to begin, or where to start. Aunt Marian has thought
that there was something queer for weeks. And then she found--oh, well,
the long and short of it is that Uncle Robert has been carrying