e
head and features. But though she was not yet middle-aged and her auburn
hair was of a Titianesque fullness in form and colour, there was a
look in her mouth and around her eyes which suggested that some sorrows
wasted her, as winds waste at last the edges of a Greek temple. For
indeed the little domestic difficulty of which she was now speaking so
decisively was rather comic than tragic. Father Brown gathered, from the
course of the conversation, that Cray, the other gourmet, had to leave
before the usual lunch-time; but that Putnam, his host, not to be done
out of a final feast with an old crony, had arranged for a special
dejeuner to be set out and consumed in the course of the morning, while
Audrey and other graver persons were at morning service. She was going
there under the escort of a relative and old friend of hers, Dr Oliver
Oman, who, though a scientific man of a somewhat bitter type, was
enthusiastic for music, and would go even to church to get it. There was
nothing in all this that could conceivably concern the tragedy in Miss
Watson's face; and by a half conscious instinct, Father Brown turned
again to the seeming lunatic grubbing about in the grass.

When he strolled across to him, the black, unbrushed head was lifted
abruptly, as if in some surprise at his continued presence. And indeed,
Father Brown, for reasons best known to himself, had lingered much
longer than politeness required; or even, in the ordinary sense,
permitted.

"Well!" cried Cray, with wild eyes. "I suppose you think I'm mad, like
the rest?"

"I have considered the thesis," answered the little man, composedly.
"And I incline to think you are not."

"What do you mean?" snapped Cray quite savagely.

"Real madmen," explained Father Brown, "always encourage their own
morbidity. They never strive against it. But you are trying to find
traces of the burglar; even when there aren't any. You are struggling
against it. You want what no madman ever wants."

"And what is that?"

"You want to be proved wrong," said Brown.

During the last words Cray had sprung or staggered to his feet and was
regarding the cleric with agitated eyes. "By hell, but that is a true
word!" he cried. "They are all at me here that the fellow was only after
the silver--as if I shouldn't be only too pleased to think so! She's
been at me," and he tossed his tousled black head towards Audrey, but
the other had no need of the direction, "she's been at me today abo