twitched her grey mouth.

"Is not that the _Times_?" she said. "Spread it out four thick, and lay
it on the floor."

I did so, and she stepped carefully on to it.

"Now," she said, standing on a great advertisement of a universal
history--"now that I am not damaging the furniture, pull yourself
together and _think_. How am I to get to the stable? I can't stop here."

She could not indeed. I felt I might be absolutely powerless to get the
muddy footprints out of the matting. And no doubt there were some in the
houseplace too.

"If I go through the scullery, I may be seen," she said, the water
pattering off her on to the newspaper. "So lucky you take in the
_Times_; it's printed on such thick paper. Where does that window look
out?"

She pointed to the window at the farther end of the room.

"On to the garden."

"Capital! Then we can get out through it, of course, without going
through the scullery."

I had not thought of that. I opened the window, and she was through it
in two cautious strides.

"Now," she said, looking back at me, "I'm comparatively safe for the
moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a
duster--a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so,
there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first
came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I
have probably smirched it. Then roll up the _Times_ tight, and put it
in the waste-paper basket."

She watched me obey her.

"Having obliterated all traces of crime," she said when I had finished,
"suppose we go on to the stable. Let me help you through the window. I
will wipe my hands on the grass first. And would not you be wise to put
on that little shawl I see on the sofa? It is getting cold."

The window was only a yard from the ground, and I got out somehow,
encumbered in my shawl, which a grateful reader had crocheted for me.
She had, however, to help me in again directly I was out, for, between
us, we had forgotten the stable key, which was underneath the cushion of
my armchair.

The rest was plain sailing. We stole down the garden path to the stable,
and I unlocked the door and let her in.

"Kindly lock me in and take away the key," she said, vanishing past me
into the darkness, and I thought I detected a tone of relief in her
brisk, matter-of-fact voice.

"I will bring some food as soon as I can," I whispered. "If I knock
three times, you will know i