Mrs. Rudden was the prosperous widow who continued the business in
the village shop, conjointly with the little farm belonging to the
Gap property. She was a shrewd woman, had been able to do very well
by her family, and was much esteemed, paying a rent which was a
considerable item in the Gap means. The ladies wondered together at
the summons. Susan hoped 'that girl' did not want to evict her, and
Bessie suggested that a co-operative store was a more probable
peril. Presently the Admiral came back. 'Do any of you know Miss
Arthuret's writing?' he said.

'Bessie knows it best,' said Susan.

He showed a letter. 'That is hers--the signature,' said Bessie. 'I
are not sure about the rest. Why--what does it mean?'

For she read--

'The Gap, 2D OCT.

'MRS. RUDDEN,--You are requested to pay over to the bearer, Mr.
Foxholm, fifty pounds of the rent you were about to bring me to-
morrow.--I remain, etc.,

'ARTHURINE ARTHURET.'

'What does it mean?' asked Bessie again. 'That's just what Mrs.
Rudden has come up to me to ask,' said the Admiral. 'This fellow
presented it in her shop about a quarter of an hour ago. The good
woman smelt a rat. What do you think she did? She looked at it and
him, asked him to wait a bit, whipped out at her back door, luckily
met the policeman starting on his rounds, bade him have an eye to
the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me. That young
woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing
it--for some absurd scheme. But do you think it is hers, or a
swindle?'

'Didn't she say she had given her autograph?' exclaimed Susan.

'And see here,' said Bessie, 'her signature is at the top of the
sheet of note-paper--small paper. And as she always writes very
large, it would be easy to fill up the rest, changing the first side
over.'

'I must take it up to her at once,' said the Admiral. 'Even if it
be genuine, she may just as well see that it is a queer thing to
have done, and not exactly the way to treat her tenants.'

'It is strange too that this man should have known anything about
Mrs. Rudden,' said Mrs. Merrifield.

'Mrs. Rudden says she had a message this morning, when she had come
up with her rent and accounts, to say that Miss Arthuret was very
much engaged, and would be glad if she would come to-morrow! Could
this fellow have been about then?'

No one knew, but Bessie breathed the word, 'Was not that young
Mytton there?'

I