THE greatest of the parlourmaids came from the hall into the drawing-room at Eastmead the high, square temple of mahogany and tapestry in which, the last few years, Mrs. Beever had spent much time in rejoicing that she had never set up new gods. She had left it, from the first, as it was full of the old things that, on succeeding to her husband’s mother, she had been obliged, as a young woman of that period, to accept as dolefully different from the things thought beautiful by other young women whose views of drawing-rooms, all about her, had also been intensified by marriage. She had not unassistedly discovered the beauty of her heritage, and she had not from any such subtle suspicion kept her hands off it. She had never in her life taken any course with regard to any object for reasons that had so little to do with her duty. Everything in her house stood, at an angle of its own, on the solid rock of the discipline rt had cost her. She had therefore lived with mere dry wist-fulness through the age of rosewood, and had been rewarded by finding that, like those who sit still in runaway vehicles, she was the only person not thrown out. Her mahogany had never moved, but the way people talked about it had, and the people who talked were now eager to sit down with her on everything that both she and they had anciently thought plainest and poorest. It was Jean, above all, who had opened her eyes opened them in particular to the great wine-dark doors, polished and silver-hinged, with which the lady of Eastmead, arriving at the depressed formula that they were “gloomy,” had for thirty years, prudently on the whole, as she considered, shut out the question of taste. One of these doors Manning now softly closed, standing, however, with her hand on the knob and looking across, as if, in the stillness, to listen at another which exactly balanced with it on the opposite side of the room. The light of the long day had not wholly faded, but what remained of it was the glow of the western sky, which showed through the wide, high window that was still open to the garden. The sensible hush in which Man ning waited was broken after a moment by a movement, ever so gentle, of the other door. Mrs. Beever put her head out of the next room; then, seeing her servant, closed the door with precautions and came forward. Her face, hard but overcharged, had pressingly asked a question.

“Yes, ma’am Mr. Vidal. I showed him, as you told me, into the library.”

Mrs. Beever thought. “ It may be wanted. I’ll see him here.” But she checked the woman’s retreat. “ Mr. Beever’s in his room? ”

“No, ma’am he went out.”

“But a minute ago? ”

“Longer, ma’am. After he carried in ”

Mrs. Beever stayed the phrase on Manning’s lips and quickly supplied her own. “The dear little girl yes. He went to Mr. Bream? ”

“No, ma’am the other way.”

Mrs. Beever thought afresh. “ But Miss Armiger’s in?”

“Oh, yes in her room.”

“She went straight? ”

Manning, on her side, reflected. “Yes, ma’am. She always goes straight.”

“Not always,” said Mrs. Beever. “ But she’s quiet there? ”

“Very quiet.”

“Then call Mr. Vidal.” While Manning obeyed she turned to the window and stared at the gather ing dusk. Then the door that had been left open closed again, and she faced about to Dennis Vidal.

“Something dreadful has happened?” he instantly asked.

“Something dreadful has happened. You’ve come from Bounds? ”

“As fast as I could run. I saw Doctor Ramage there.”

“And what did he tell you? ”

“That I must come straight here.”

“Nothing else? ”

“That you would tell me,” Dennis said. “ I saw the shock in his face.”

“But you didn’t ask? ”

“Nothing. Here I am,”

“Here you are, thank God!” Mrs. Beever gave a muffled moan.

She was going on, but, eagerly, he went before her. “ Can I help you? ”

“Yes if there is help. You can do so first by not asking me a question till I have put those I wish to yourself.”

“Put them put them!” he said impatiently.

At his peremptory note she quivered, showing him she was in the state in which every sound startles. She locked her lips and closed her eyes an instant; she held herself together with an effort. “I’m in great trouble, and I venture to believe that if you came back to me today it was because ”

He took her up shorter than before. “ Because I thought of you as a friend? For God’s sake, think of me as one! ”

She pressed to her lips while she looked at him the small tight knot into which her nerves had crumpled her pocket-handkerchief. She had no tears only a visible terror. “ I’ve never appealed to one,” she replied, “ as I shall appeal to you now. Effie Bream is dead.” Then as instant horror was in his eyes: “ She was found in the water.”

“The water?” Dennis gasped.

“Under the bridge at the other side. She had been caught, she was held, in the slow current by some obstruction, and by the pier. Don’t ask me how when I arrived, by the mercy of heaven, she had been brought to the bank. But she was gone.” With a movement of the head toward the room she had quitted, “ We carried her back here,” she went on. Vidal’s face, which was terrible in the intensity of its sudden vision, struck her apparently as for the instant an echo, wild but interrogative, of what she had last said; so she explained quickly: “ To think to get more time.” He turned straight away from her; he went, as she had done, to the window and, with his back presented, stood looking out in the mere rigour of dismay.

She was silent long enough to show a respect for the particular consternation that her manner of watching him betrayed her impression of having stirred; then she went on: “ How long were you at Bounds with Rose? ”

Dennis turned round without meeting her eyes or, at first, understanding her question. “ At Bounds? ”

“When, on your joining her, she went over with you.”

He thought a moment. “ She didn’t go over with me. I went alone after the child came out.”

“You were there when Manning brought her? ” Mrs. Beever wondered. “ Manning didn’t tell me that.”

“I found Rose on the lawn with Mr. Bream when I brought back your boat. He left us together after inviting me to Bounds and then the little girl arrived. Rose let me hold her, and I was with them till Miss Martle appeared. Then I rather uncivilly went off.”

“You went without Rose?” Mrs. Beever asked.

“Yes I left her with the little girl and Miss Martle.” The marked effect of this statement made him add: “ Was it your impression I didn’t? ”

His companion, before answering him, dropped into a seat and stared up at him; after which she articulated: “ I’ll tell you later. You left them,” she demanded, “ in the garden with the child? ”

“In the garden with the............