went out after dark with some egg and bread-crumbs, in
case they might be out. And just before her she saw a figure gliding by
the rhododendrons. It looked like a short, slim man dressed as they
used to be hundreds of years ago; she saw the sword by his side, and
the feather in his cap. She thought she should have died, she said, and
though it was gone in a minute, and she tried to make out it was all her
fancy, she fainted when she got into the house. Uncle was at home that
night, and when she came to and told him he ran out, and stayed out for
half-an-hour or more, and then came in and said he could find nothing;
and the next minute aunt heard that low whistle just outside the window,
and uncle ran out again.'

'My dear Mary, do let us come to the point. What on earth does it all
lead to?'

'Haven't you guessed? Why, of course it was that girl all the time.'

'Girl? I thought you said it was a boy with a red head?'

'Don't you see? She's an actress, and she dressed up. She won't leave
uncle alone. It wasn't enough that he was with her nearly every evening
in the week, but she must be after him on Sundays too. Aunt found a
letter the horrid thing had written, and so it has all come out. Enid
Vivian she calls herself, though I don't suppose she has any right to
one name or the other. And the question is, what is to be done?'

'Let us talk of that again. I'll have a pipe, and then we'll go to bed.'

They were almost asleep when Mary said suddenly--

'Doesn't it seem queer, Edward? Last night you were telling me such
beautiful things, and to-night I have been talking about that
disgraceful old man and his goings on.'

'I don't know,' answered Darnell, dreamily. 'On the walls of that great
church upon the hill I saw all kinds of strange grinning monsters,
carved in stone.'

The misdemeanours of Mr. Robert Nixon brought in their train
consequences strange beyond imagination. It was not that they continued
to develop on the somewhat fantastic lines of these first adventures
which Mrs. Darnell had related; indeed, when 'Aunt Marian' came over to
Shepherd's Bush, one Sunday afternoon, Darnell wondered how he had had
the heart to laugh at the misfortunes of a broken-hearted woman.

He had never seen his wife's aunt before, and he was strangely surprised
when Alice showed her into the garden where they were sitting on the
warm and misty Sunday in September. To him, save during these latter
days, she had always been a