couldn't say, my lord."

When the servants had gone Inley continued, at first in a calmer voice:

"Miss Bassett lived in the red cottage just beyond the gate of the South
Lodge from time immemorial. You generally came to us in Scotland, I
know, but I should think you must have seen her."

Suddenly a recollection flashed upon me--a recollection of a long, flat
figure, a drab face, thin hair coming away from a wrinkled forehead
under a mushroom hat, flapping, old-fashioned golden earrings.

"Not the person I used to call 'the Plank'?" I said.

"Did you?"

He thought for a moment.

"Yes; I believe you did-. I'd forgotten."

"She was always in church twenty minutes before the service began, and
always dropped her hymn-book coming out if there were visitors in the
Abbey pew!"

"Yes, yes; that's it. Miss Bassett is very nervous in little ways."

"I remember her now perfectly. And you say she----"

I looked at him, and hesitated.

"She saved Vere's life and, indirectly, mine. I'll tell you now we're
together again at last. I shall never tell Vere."

He looked towards the windows, across which dark blue silk curtains were
drawn, as if he could see the passing-bell swinging in the old square
tower. Then he turned to me.

"You know how mad I was about Vere. It's always like that with me.
Unless I'm stone I'm fire. After we were married I got even madder.
Having her all to myself was like enchantment, and in Italy, too, my
other native land."

I thought of Lady Inley's eyes.

"I can understand," I said.

"Of course, when we got back it had to be different. Friends came
in, and she was run after and admired and written about. You know the
publicity of life in modern London."

"City of public-houses and society spies."

"I bore it, because it's supposed to be the thing. And Vere rather likes
it, somehow. So I let her have her fun, as long as it was fun. I didn't
intend it should ever be anything else."

He frowned. When he did that, and his thick eyebrows nearly met, he
looked all Italian.

"We did the usual things--Paris, Ascot, Scotland, and so on--till Vere
had to lie up."

"Your boy?"

"Yes; Hugo came along. I was glad when that was over. I thought she was
going to die. You knew Seymour Glynd?"

"Life Guards? Killed hunting a year ago?"

Inley nodded.

"He was a great deal with us soon after Hugo's birth. I thought nothing
of it. I'd known the fellow all my life. But then one nearly always
ha