id with playful bullying sharpness, above the growling, irregular
pulsation of the engine--"Here, grandad, you've got to put this on."

"Have I?" demanded uncertainly the thick, heavy voice of the old man.

"Yes, you have--on the top of your other coat. If I don't look after
you I shall get myself into a row!... Here, let me put your fist in
the armhole. It's your blooming glove that stops it.... There! Now, up
with you, grandad!... All right! I've got you. I sha'n't drop you."

A door snapped to; then another. The car shot violently forward,
with shrieks and a huge buzzing noise, and leaped up the slope of the
street. Rachel, still in the porch, could see Mr. Batchgrew's head
wagging rather helplessly from side to side, just above the red speck
of the tail-lamp. Then the whole vision was swiftly blotted out, and
the warning shrieks of the invisible car grew fainter on the way to
Red Cow. It pleased Rachel to think of the old man being casually
bullied and shaken by John's Ernest.

She leaned forward and gazed down the street, not up it. When she
turned into the house Mrs. Maldon was descending the stairs, which,
being in a line with the lobby, ended opposite the front door. Judging
by the fixity of the old lady's features, Rachel decided that she was
not yet quite pardoned for the slight she had put upon the memory of
her employer. So she smiled pleasantly.

"Don't close the front door, dear," said Mrs. Maldon stiffly. "There's
some one there."

Rachel looked round. She had actually, in sheer absent-mindedness
or negligence or deafness, been shutting the door in the face of the
telegraph-boy!

"Oh, dear! I do hope--!" Mrs. Maldon muttered as she hastily tugged at
the envelope.

Having read the message, she passed it on to Rachel, and at the
same time forgivingly responded to her smile. The excitement of the
telegram had sufficed to dissipate Mrs. Maldon's trifling resentment.

Rachel read--

"Train hour late. Julian."

The telegraph boy was dismissed: "No answer, thank you."

X

During the next half-hour excitement within the dwelling gradually
increased. It grew out of nothing--out of Mrs. Maldon's admirable calm
in receiving the message of the telegram--until it affected like an
atmospheric disturbance the ground floor--the sitting-room where
Mrs. Maldon was spending nervous force in the effort to preserve an
absolutely tranquil mind, the kitchen where Rachel was "putting back"
the supper, the lo