of the letter? She saw no way open.
The letter was a thing familiar to Mrs. Prichard, but a sudden
thunderbolt to Ruth Thrale. Had Gwen been in possession of Daverill's
letter announcing Maisie's own death, she might have shown it to her.
But _could_ such old eyes have read it, or would she have understood it?

No--it was impossible to do anything but speak. The next opportunity
_must_ be seized, for talk seemed only to erect new obstacles to action.
The perplexities close at hand, there in Strides Cottage, were the
things to dwell on. Better go back to them! "But Mrs. Thrale did not
think you mad only because you thought that about the mill," Gwen said
this to coax the conversation back.

"No, my dear! I think, for all I found to say that night, she might have
thought it no more than a touch of fever. And little wonder, too, for
her to hear me doubt her grandfather's mill being his own. But what put
me past was to see how the bare truth I told of my father's name, and my
sister's, and the name of the mill my father would say was older than
the church-tower itself--just that and no more--to make her"--here the
old lady lowered her voice, and glanced round as though to be sure they
were alone--"to make her turn and run from me, quite in a maze, as
though I was a ghost to frighten her, that was what unsettled me!" She
fixed her eyes on Gwen, and her hands were restless with her distressing
eagerness to get some clue to a solution of her perplexity.

Gwen could say nothing, short of everything. She simply dared not try to
tell the whole truth, with a rush, to a hearer so frail and delicate. It
seemed that any shock must kill. The musical voice went on, its
appealing tone becoming harder and harder for her hearer to bear.
"Why--oh why--when I was telling just the truth, that my father's name
was Isaac Runciman, and my sister was Phoebe, and our mill was Darenth
Mill, why should she not have heard me through to the end, to make it
all clear? Indeed, my dear, she put me on thinking I was not saying the
words I thought, and I was all awake and clear the whole time. Was I
not?"

Gwen's response:--"I will ask her what it was," contained, as a
temporary palliative, as much falsehood as she dared to use; just to
soothe back the tears that were beginning to get the better of speech.
She felt vaguely about for a straw to catch at--something that might
soften the revelation that had to come. "Did you tell her your sister
was Phoe