ouldn't bear me out of his sight. I remember once, when
I had gone to see my poor mother, he sent me three telegrams in
thirty-five minutes telling me to come home."

"Thomas was so unselfish," murmured Mrs. Chalk. "I once stayed with my
mother for six weeks and he never said a word."

An odd expression, transient but unmistakable, flitted across the face of
the listener.

"It nearly broke his heart, though, poor dear," said Mrs. Chalk, glaring
at her. "He said he had never had such a time in his life."

"I don't expect he had," said Mrs. Stobell, screwing up her small
features.

Mrs. Chalk drew herself up in her chair. "What do you mean by that?"
she demanded.

"I meant what he meant," replied Mrs. Stobell, with a little air of
surprise.

Mrs. Chalk bit her lip, and her friend, turning her head, gazed long and
mournfully at a large photograph of Mr. Stobell painted in oils, which
stared stiffly down on them from the wall.

"He never caused me a moment's uneasiness," she said, tenderly. "I could
trust him anywhere."

[Illustration: "Her friend gazed long and mournfully at a large
photograph of Mr. Stobell."]

Mrs. Chalk gazed thoughtfully at the portrait. It was not a good
likeness, but it was more like Mr. Stobell than anybody else in
Binchester, a fact which had been of some use in allaying certain
unworthy suspicions of Mr. Stobell the first time he saw it.

"Yes," said Mrs. Chalk, significantly, "I should think you could."

Mrs. Stobell, about to reply, caught the staring eye of the photograph,
and, shaking her head sorrowfully, took out her handkerchief and wiped
her eyes. Mrs. Chalk softened.

"They both had their faults," she said, gently, "but they were great
friends. I dare say that it was a comfort to them to be together to the
last."

Captain Bowers himself began to lose hope at last, and went about in so
moody a fashion that a shadow seemed to have fallen upon the cottage. By
tacit consent the treasure had long been a forbidden subject, and even
when the news of Selina's promissory note reached Dialstone Lane he had
refused to discuss it. It had nothing to do with him, he said, and he
washed his hands of it--a conclusion highly satisfactory to Miss Vickers,
who had feared that she would have had to have dropped for a time her
visits to Mr. Tasker.

A slight change in the household occurring at this time helped to divert
the captain's thoughts. Mr. Tasker while chopping wood ha