ome back?'

This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman, and
they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite direction
to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on her wan face,
had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret her sacrificial
step for mending matters that morning.

She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to
inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman
who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.

The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just
handed Baptista a newspaper on which she discerned the heading, 'A
Schoolmaster drowned while bathing,' when her husband turned to join her.
She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion; but it was
more than flesh and blood could do, and completing a small purchase
almost ran out of the shop.

'What is your terrible hurry, mee deer?' said Heddegan, hastening after.

'I don't know--I don't want to stay in shops,' she gasped.

'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go
back and have some tay!'

They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a
sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily
spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the midst,
and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the meal by the
ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view had been engaged,
regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's pleasure, she did not
direct any keen attention out of the window. Her gaze as often fell on
the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere, and on the table as much as
on either, beholding nothing at all.

But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which her
eyes presently became riveted like those of a little bird upon a snake.
For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such a
hat--surely, from its peculiar make, the actual hat--that had been worn
by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when she saw a railway ticket
sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket there--she had
noticed the act.

Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her
husband jumped up and said, 'You are not well! What is it? What shall I
get 'ee?'

'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at that chemist's
shop you were in just now.'