t fast--I thought I had my hand on the clue. How little I
knew then of the windings of the labyrinths which were still to mislead
me!

"Did Sir Percival live in your neighbourhood at that time?" I asked.

"No, sir. He came among us as a stranger. His father had died not
long before in foreign parts. I remember he was in mourning. He put up
at the little inn on the river (they have pulled it down since that
time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. He wasn't much noticed when
he first came--it was a common thing enough for gentlemen to travel
from all parts of England to fish in our river."

"Did he make his appearance in the village before Anne was born?"

"Yes, sir. Anne was born in the June month of eighteen hundred and
twenty-seven--and I think he came at the end of April or the beginning
of May."

"Came as a stranger to all of you? A stranger to Mrs. Catherick as well
as to the rest of the neighbours?"

"So we thought at first, sir. But when the scandal broke out, nobody
believed they were strangers. I remember how it happened as well as if
it was yesterday. Catherick came into our garden one night, and woke
us by throwing up a handful of gravel from the walk at our window. I
heard him beg my husband, for the Lord's sake, to come down and speak
to him. They were a long time together talking in the porch. When my
husband came back upstairs he was all of a tremble. He sat down on the
side of the bed and he says to me, 'Lizzie! I always told you that
woman was a bad one--I always said she would end ill, and I'm afraid in
my own mind that the end has come already. Catherick has found a lot
of lace handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold watch and
chain, hid away in his wife's drawer--things that nobody but a born
lady ought ever to have--and his wife won't say how she came by them.'
'Does he think she stole them?' says I. 'No,' says he, 'stealing would
be bad enough. But it's worse than that, she's had no chance of
stealing such things as those, and she's not a woman to take them if
she had. They're gifts, Lizzie--there's her own initials engraved
inside the watch--and Catherick has seen her talking privately, and
carrying on as no married woman should, with that gentleman in
mourning, Sir Percival Glyde. Don't you say anything about it--I've
quieted Catherick for to-night. I've told him to keep his tongue to
himself, and his eyes and his ears open, and to wait a day or two, till
he