floundering, half flying, half running into the
space, pursued by a third woman whose age could hardly be under eighty.
Although wizened and unsteady on her legs she kept up the chase, egged
on by the laughter of the others; her face was expressive of furious
rage, and as she ran she swore in Spanish. Frightened by hand-clapping
here, a napkin there, the bird ran this way and that in sharp angles,
and finally fluttered straight at the old woman, who opened her scanty
grey skirts to enclose it, dropped upon it in a bundle, and then holding
it out cut its head off with an expression of vindictive energy and
triumph combined. The blood and the ugly wriggling fascinated Rachel, so
that although she knew that some one had come up behind and was standing
beside her, she did not turn round until the old woman had settled down
on the bench beside the others. Then she looked up sharply, because of
the ugliness of what she had seen. It was Miss Allan who stood beside
her.

"Not a pretty sight," said Miss Allan, "although I daresay it's really
more humane than our method. . . . I don't believe you've ever been in
my room," she added, and turned away as if she meant Rachel to follow
her. Rachel followed, for it seemed possible that each new person might
remove the mystery which burdened her.

The bedrooms at the hotel were all on the same pattern, save that some
were larger and some smaller; they had a floor of dark red tiles;
they had a high bed, draped in mosquito curtains; they had each a
writing-table and a dressing-table, and a couple of arm-chairs. But
directly a box was unpacked the rooms became very different, so that
Miss Allan's room was very unlike Evelyn's room. There were no variously
coloured hatpins on her dressing-table; no scent-bottles; no narrow
curved pairs of scissors; no great variety of shoes and boots; no silk
petticoats lying on the chairs. The room was extremely neat. There
seemed to be two pairs of everything. The writing-table, however,
was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by the
arm-chair on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, in
which there were many slips of paper sticking out at different degrees
of thickness. Miss Allan had asked Rachel to come in out of kindness,
thinking that she was waiting about with nothing to do. Moreover, she
liked young women, for she had taught many of them, and having received
so much hospitality from the Ambroses she was glad to