d to me.... Who on
earth...?" And then he recalled Beatrice saying that she had a twin
sister who had disapproved of her stage career. Of course it must be
she. He had been so accustomed to think of his preceptress as Beatrice
Blair that he had almost forgotten it must be a stage name. And so she
was really an Arkwright--rather a pretty name on the whole, though
unworthy of her high claims; failing Beatrice Blair, it ought to have
been Rosalind ... Rosalind what? Rosalind Roy ... Rosalind Gay ...
Rosalind Ebbsfleet ... Rosalind Wise.... He smiled as his thoughts
played with a score of dainty conceits. He was roused to common sense
and depression by the remembrance that she was really Mrs. Lukos. But
was Lukos a surname? "Let's hope not," he reflected sourly.

"No bad news, I trust," said the chubby clergyman, with a polite but
ecclesiastical inflection.

"No--no," answered Lionel abruptly. He abandoned Rosalind completely and
tried to arrange his thoughts. "By the way, do you happen to know any
one of the name of Arkwright in the neighborhood?"

The chubby clergyman looked interested.

"I do and I don't," he said, pulling his chair close to the table and
leaning on his elbows. "A Miss Arkwright lives at The Quiet House. She
has been the tenant for only two months, and nobody has seen her yet."

"What!"

"It sounds odd," said the clergyman with the smile of one who has an
interesting story for a virgin audience, "but it is true. She calls on
nobody, and denies herself to every caller. She is never seen in the
village except when driving in her motor, and I am sorry to say that she
does not come to church."

"But surely something is known of her,--through the servants, for
instance----"

"She has a housekeeper, I believe, who makes friends with nobody; a dumb
gardener and a dumb footman. A little extraordinary, eh?" He rubbed his
hands with zest. "But it is true none the less. Of course, all sorts of
gossip have been greedily accepted. I never listen to gossip--one has to
think of one's position--but some things can not be hid.... They say she
takes motor drives at night,--every night. I do not credit the
'every'--exaggeration is so prevalent. I always believe less than half
what the villagers tell me--that is, what drifts round to my ears."

"But what does she do all day?" asked Lionel. Clearly this was a queer
state of affairs.

"I do not know. Her grounds are large. Perhaps she gardens."

"You do not thin