her mouth--stared at him in
speechless confusion--and disappeared in the kitchen regions. This
strange reception of his inquiry irritated him unreasonably. He knocked
with the absurd violence of a man who vents his anger on the first
convenient thing that he can find. The landlady opened the door, and
looked at him in stern and silent surprise.

"Does Mrs. Ronald lodge here?" he repeated.

The landlady answered with some appearance of effort--the effort of a
person who was carefully considering her words before she permitted them
to pass her lips.

"Mrs. Ronald has taken rooms here. But she has not occupied them yet."

"Not occupied them yet?" The words bewildered him as if they had been
spoken in an unknown tongue. He stood stupidly silent on the doorstep.
His anger was gone; an all-mastering fear throbbed heavily at his heart.
The landlady looked at him, and said to her secret self: "Just what I
suspected; there _is_ something wrong!"

"Perhaps I have not sufficiently explained myself, sir," she resumed
with grave politeness. "Mrs. Ronald told me that she was staying at
Ramsgate with friends. She would move into my house, she said, when her
friends left--but they had not quite settled the day yet. She calls here
for letters. Indeed, she was here early this morning, to pay the second
week's rent. I asked when she thought of moving in. She didn't seem to
know; her friends (as I understood) had not made up their minds. I must
say I thought it a little odd. Would you like to leave any message?"

He recovered himself sufficiently to speak. "Can you tell me where her
friends live?" he said.

The landlady shook her head. "No, indeed. I offered to save Mrs. Ronald
the trouble of calling here, by sending letters or cards to her present
residence. She declined the offer--and she has never mentioned the
address. Would you like to come in and rest, sir? I will see that your
card is taken care of, if you wish to leave it."

"Thank you, ma'am--it doesn't matter--good morning."

The landlady looked after him as he descended the house-steps. "It's the
husband, Peggy," she said to the servant, waiting inquisitively behind
her. "Poor old gentleman! And such a respectable-looking woman, too!"

Mr. Ronald walked mechanically to the end of the row of houses, and met
the wide grand view of sea and sky. There were some seats behind the
railing which fenced the edge of the cliff. He sat down, perfectly
stupefied and helpless, on t