re, and in the middle distance, the ploughed fields--freshly
turned--glowed with the rich, red blood of the earth's fulness. So
it presented itself to the eyes of Mrs. Durlacher, when, one morning
late in April, she drove up in her motor to the old iron-barred
oak-door which opened into the panelled hall of her country
residence.

She was alone. Her maid and another servant had come down by rail
to High Wycombe and were being driven over in one of the house
conveyances from the station, a distance of five miles. The chauffeur
descended from the seat, opened the door of the car, and when she
had passed into the house, beckoned a gardener who was at work on
one of the tulip beds, to help him in with some of the luggage which
Mrs. Durlacher had brought with her.

"She's coming to stay, then?" said the gardener.

"S'pose so," replied the chauffeur. "I'd understood yesterday as she
was going to the openin' of a bazaar this afternoon--openin' by
royalty; but I got my orders this morning to fill up the tank and
come along at once, 'cos she was going out into the country. 'Ow's
that ferret of mine going on?"

"First class," said the gardener.

"Well then, as soon as I get the car cleaned this afternoon, I'm going
to have some rattin'. Here--put 'em in the 'all--here."

The gardener struggled obediently. The chauffeur did most of the
looking on and practically all the talking.

From the mouths of babes and sucklings and from the lips of hired
servants one gets wisdom in the one case and information in the other.
All that the chauffeur had stated was quite true. Some five days
before--and we have now three years behind us since that night when
Sally Bishop tottered into Traill's arms--Mrs. Durlacher had
received a letter from her brother, of whom she had seen nothing for
almost six months, saying that he thought of going down to Apsley
for the day. "But I make sure first," his letter concluded, "that
the field is cleared. Down there, as you know, I prefer to be the
only starter."

She had written in reply that she had only been down to Apsley once
that year herself and, furthermore, on the day he mentioned, the
place would be as deserted of human beings as London is in the heart
of July--meaning thereby that any place is a wilderness which is
empty of one's self and one's associates. That she had written by
return of post; then, two days later, her mind had caught an
impression--a wandering insect that the flimsy web o