u be glad or sorry?"

She grappled with the question in silence for a moment or two. Then she
broke down and, to my dismay, began to cry.

"Do you suppose there's a woman in England that, in her heart of
hearts, doesn't want her men folk to fight?"

I only allow the earlier part of this chapter to stand in order to show
how a man quite well-meaning, although a trifle irascible, may be
wanting in Christian charity and ordinary understanding; and of how
many tangled knots of human motive, impulse, and emotion this war is a
solvent. You see, she defended her son to the last, adopting his own
specious line of argument; but at the last came the breaking-point....

The rest of our interview was of no great matter. I did my best to
reassure and comfort her; and when I next saw Marigold, I said affably:

"You did quite well to wake me."

"I thought I was acting rightly, sir. Mr. Randall having bolted, so to
speak, it seemed only natural that Mrs. Holmes should come to see you."

"You knew that Mr. Randall had bolted and you never told me?"

I glared indignantly. Marigold stiffened himself--the degree of
stiffness beyond his ordinary inflexibility of attitude could only have
been ascertained by a vernier, but that degree imparted an appreciable
dignity to his demeanour.

"I beg pardon, sir, but lately I've noticed that my little bits of
local news haven't seemed to be welcome."

"Marigold," said I, "don't be an ass."

"Very good, sir."

"My mind," said I, "is in an awful muddle about all sorts of things
that are going on in this town. So I should esteem it a favour if you
would tell me at once any odds and ends of gossip you may pick up. They
may possibly be important."

"And if I have any inferences to draw from what I hear," said he
gravely, fixing me with his clear eye, "may I take the liberty of
acquainting you with them?"

"Certainly."

"Very good, sir," said Marigold.

Now what was Marigold going to draw inferences about? That was another
puzzle. I felt myself being drawn into a fog-filled labyrinth of
intrigue in which already groping were most of the people I knew. What
with the mysterious relations between Betty and Boyce and Gedge, what
with young Dacre's full exoneration of Boyce, what with young Randall's
split with Gedge and his impeccable attitude towards Phyllis, things
were complicated enough; Sir Anthony's revelations regarding poor
Althea and his dark surmises concerning Randall complicated