I need now," I answered impatiently, "is your absence."

She rose at once from her chair.

"Very well," she said, "I will go. Only let me warn you that I am a
persistent woman. I think that it will not be very long before you will
see things differently. Will you shake hands with me, Guy?"

Her small white fingers came hesitatingly out from under her cloak. I
did not stop to think to what my action might commit me, whether indeed
it was seemly that I should accept any measure of friendship from this
woman. I took her hand and held it for a moment in mine.

"You cannot go back alone," I said, doubtfully, as I opened the door.

"I have a servant waiting close by," she answered, "and I am not at all
afraid. Think over what I have said to you--and good-bye."

She drew her cloak around her and flitted away into the darkness.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A WOMAN'S TONGUE

Grooton returned a few minutes later from the village. He begged the
favour of a few words with me. He was a man of impassive features and
singular quietness of demeanour. Yet it was obvious that something had
happened to disturb him.

"I think it only right, sir, that you should know of the reports which
are circulating in the neighbourhood," he said, fixing his dark grave
eyes respectfully upon me. "I called for a few minutes at the inn, and
made it my business to listen."

"Do these reports concern me, Grooton?" I asked.

"They do, sir."

"Go ahead, then," I told him.

"They refer also, sir," he said, "to the man who was found dead near the
cottage where you used to live in January last. He was supposed to have
been washed up from the sea, but it has recently been stated that he was
seen, on the evening of the day before his body was found, in the
village, and it is also stated that he inquired from a certain person as
to the whereabouts of your cottage. He set out with the intention of
calling upon you, and he was found dead in the morning by you, sir,
within a hundred yards of where you were living."

"Anything else, Grooton?"

"There is a lot of foolish talk, sir. He is said to have been a
relative of yours with whom you were not on good terms, and the young
lady who has just given this information to the police through her
father states that she has remained silent up to now at your request."

"I am supposed, then," I said, "to be concerned in this fellow's death?"

"I have heard that opinion openly expressed, sir," Grooton assented,
re