ut the revolver down on the path,
picked the cat up in my arms, and dropped it over the hedge into the
road. Just as I had caught up the revolver again I was confronted by
Miss Bassett. She had come in slippers up the path in the dark to look
for her cat."

I uttered a slight exclamation.

Inley went on: "She had a handkerchief tied over her cap and under her
chin, and a small lantern in her hands, on which she wore black mittens.
I can see her now. We stood there on the path for a minute staring at
each other without a word. The light from the lantern flickered over the
revolver, and I saw Miss Bassett look down at it."

He stopped, poured out a glass of water, and drank it off like a man who
has been running.

"Didn't she show surprise--fear?" I asked.

"Not a bit. Women are so extraordinary, even old women who've never been
in touch with life, that I'm certain now she understood directly her
eyes fell on the revolver."

"What did she do?"

"After a minute she said: 'Lord Inley, I'm looking for my cat. Have you
seen him?'

"'Yes,' I said; 'he's run into the house.'

"It was a lie, but I wanted her to go in. I had slipped the revolver
back into my pocket, and tried to assume a perfectly simple, natural
air. I fancied it would be very easy to impose on Miss Bassett when I
heard her question. It sounded so innocent, as if the old lady was full
of her pet. I even thought, perhaps, she had not known what the revolver
was when she looked at it.

"'Did he run into the house?' she said, still looking at me from under
her wrinkled eyelids.

"'Yes; when you came out. He was here on the path with me. You called
"Johnny!" and he ran off there between the mulberry-trees.'

"All the time I was speaking to her I had an eye to the road, and my
ears were listening like an Indian's when he puts his head to the ground
to hear the pad of his enemy.

"Miss Bassett stood there quietly for a moment as if she were
considering something. She looked prim. I remember that even now--prim
as a caricature. It was only a moment, but it seemed to me an hour. 'If
they should come,' I thought, 'while she is out here!' The sweat came
out all over my face with impatience--an agony of impatience. I longed
to take the old lady by the shoulders, push her into the cottage, lock
her in, and be alone, able to watch the bit of road from the Abbey gates
to the wicket. But I could do nothing. I was obliged to repress every
sign of agitation. It