e Smiths'?

"I'm afraid I don't understand," she deprecated.

Mrs. Ellsworth sat in bed staring up at her. "Either you are a fool," she
said, "or else I have caught you or _him_ in a lie. I don't know which
yet. But I soon shall. Perhaps you were not the only person in this house
who went out to-night with a latchkey. Now do you guess?"

"No, I don't," the girl had to answer, though a dreadful idea was
whirring an alarm in her brain.

"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings
than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that
Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from
rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now,
did or did _not_ a certain person walk in and surprise you at the
Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes
or no?"

"No," Annesley breathed.

"Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are
lying than _he_. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front
door?"

"It--sounds like it. But--perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice--make
such strange noises."

"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly.
Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize
door open between, as they are now.

"No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy
on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so
fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was
sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine,
though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he
would drop in at the Archdeacon's----"

"Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her
mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go
upstairs! I must stop him--I mean, speak to him! I----"

"You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and
seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley
struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was
strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of
cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could
not loosen them.

Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then
checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer.

But her voice