ailed barges, put caps on the waves in the
middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of
faint steamers in the offing.

Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been
fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that
great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired
something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and
challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large,
audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully
suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see,
and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up
and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already
advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey's eyes changed, and
she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful
little thing--and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps
she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.

And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight
hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised
everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the
operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached
the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation
Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the
body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have
enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.

Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had
undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own
ends.

The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was
draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and,
since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly
twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves
immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two
servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were
trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of
umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item
except the flowers labelled "Paris via Charing Cross and Calais."

Audrey op