to her knock. Thinking she was asleep
she returned half-an-hour later, only to find her absent, and that the
bed had not been slept in. We told the mistress, never thinking that
such an awful fate had befallen poor Miss Mary. Mistress was inclined
to believe that she had gone off on some wild excursion somewhere, for
of late she's been in the habit of going away for a day or two without
telling us. At first none of us dreamed that anything had happened,
until, just before twelve o'clock, Reuben Dixon's lad, who'd been out
fishing, came up, shouting that poor Miss Mary was in the water under
some bushes close to the stile that leads into Monk's Wood. At first
we couldn't believe it; but, with the others, I flew down post-haste,
and there she was, poor thing, under the surface, with her dress
caught in the bushes that droop into the water. Her hat was gone, and
her hair, unbound, floated out, waving with the current. We at once
got a boat and took her out, but she was quite dead. Four men from the
village carried her up here, and they've placed her in her own room."

"The police know about it, of course?"

"Yes, we told old Jarvis, the constable. He's sent a telegram to
Oundle, I think."

"And what doctor has seen her?"

"Doctor Govitt. He's here now."

"Ah! I must see him. He has examined the body, I suppose?"

"I expect so, sir. He's been a long time in the room."

"And how is it believed that the poor young lady got into the water?"
I asked, anxious to obtain the local theory.

"It's believed that she either fell in or was pushed in a long way
higher up, because half-a-mile away, not far from the lock, there's
distinct marks in the long grass, showing that somebody went off the
path to the brink of the river. And close by that spot they found her
black silk shawl."

"She went out without a hat, then?" I remarked, recollecting that when
she had met her husband in secret she had worn a shawl. Could it be
possible that she had met him again, and that he had made away with
her? The theory seemed a sound one in the present circumstances.

"It seems to me, sir, that the very fact of her taking her shawl
showed that she did not intend to be out very long," the butler said.

"It would almost appear that she went out in the night in order to
meet somebody," I observed.

The old man shook his head sorrowfully, saying:

"Poor Miss Mary's never been the same since her husband died, Doctor.
She was often very stran