"
observed Radmore.

And then, almost as if the other had seen into his mind, Miss Pendarth,
with a touch of significance in her voice, observed musingly: "I fancy
Timmy doesn't much like the pretty young widow who has taken The Trellis
House. The first evening Mrs. Crofton came to see the Tosswills, she got
an awful fright. Timmy's dog, Flick, rushed into the room and began
snarling and growling at her. There was a most disagreeable scene, and
from what one of the girls said the other day, it seems to have
prejudiced the boy against her."

Radmore looked straight into Miss Pendarth's face. Then she hadn't yet
heard about last night?

There was a slight pause.

"Yes," said Radmore at last. "I'm afraid that Timmy does dislike Mrs.
Crofton."

"Perhaps," said Miss Pendarth slowly, "the boy has more reason to dislike
her than we know." As Radmore said nothing, she went on: "Mrs. Crofton is
behaving in a very wrong, as well as in a very unladylike, way with Jack
Tosswill."

Radmore moved uneasily in his seat. It was time for him to escape. This
was the Miss Pendarth of long ago--noted for the spiteful, dangerous
things she sometimes said.

He got up. "Jack certainly goes to see her very often," he said, "but I
don't think that's her fault. Forgive me for saying so, Miss Pendarth,
but you know what village gossip is?"

"I'm afraid that she's giving Jack a great deal of deliberate
encouragement. Even her servants believe that he regards himself as
engaged to her."

"What absolute nonsense!" exclaimed Radmore vigorously. "Why, if it comes
to that, Rosamund's quite as much at The Trellis House as Jack is, and
even _I_ go there very often!"

"Yes, I know you do; at one time you were first favourite," said Miss
Pendarth coolly.

She had never been lacking in courage.

"And yet I can assure you," he exclaimed in a challenging tone, "that I,
at any rate, am not at all in love with Mrs. Crofton."

"Sit down, Godfrey. There's something I want to ask you."

Unwillingly he obeyed.

"I think you knew Colonel Crofton?"

"Yes, and I liked him very much."

"I'm afraid from what I've heard that she wasn't a particularly good wife
to him." Radmore was surprised at the feeling in her voice, but he asked
himself irritably how the devil had Miss Pendarth heard anything of the
Croftons and their private affairs?

He got up again, feeling vexed with himself for having come in to Rose
Cottage.

She also rose from the sto