range smile. I reddened, angry and frightened.

The distance between the station and our house proved horribly short. And
when I arrived in front of the green gates, and put my hand on the latch,
I knew that I had formed no plan whatever. I opened the right-hand gate
and entered the garden. The blinds were still down, and the house looked
so decorous and innocent in its age. My poor aunt! What a night she must
have been through! It was inconceivable that I should tell her what had
happened to me. Indeed, under the windows of that house it seemed
inconceivable that the thing had happened which had happened.
Inconceivable! Grotesque! Monstrous!

But could I lie? Could I rise to the height of some sufficient and
kindly lie?

A hand drew slightly aside the blind of the window over the porch. I
sighed, and went wearily, in my boat-shaped straw, up the gravelled path
to the door.

Rebecca met me at the door. It was so early that she had not yet put on
an apron. She looked tired, as if she had not slept.

'Come in, miss,' she said weakly, holding open the door.

It seemed to me that I did not need this invitation from a servant.

'I suppose you've all been fearfully upset, wondering where I was,' I
began, entering the hall.

My adventure appeared fantastically unreal to me in the presence of this
buxom creature, whom I knew to be incapable of imagining anything one
hundredth part so dreadful.

'No, miss; I wasn't upset on account of you. You're always so sensible
like. You always know what to do. I knew as you must have stopped the
night with friends in Hanbridge on account of the heavy rain, and perhaps
that there silly cabman not turning up, and them tramcars all crowded;
and, of course, you couldn't telegraph.'

This view that I was specially sagacious and equal to emergencies rather
surprised me.

'But auntie?' I demanded, trembling.

'Oh, miss!' cried Rebecca, glancing timidly over her shoulder, 'I want
you to come with me into the dining-room before you go upstairs.'

She snuffled.

In the dining-room I went at once to the window to draw up the blinds.

'Not that, not that!' Rebecca appealed, weeping. 'For pity's sake!' And
she caught my hand.

I then noticed that Lucy was standing in the doorway, also weeping.
Rebecca noticed this too.

'Lucy, you go to your kitchen this minute,' she said sharply, and then
turned to me and began to cry again. 'Miss Peel--how can I tell you?'

'Why do you call me M