slightly altered as to name and place, would have passed muster as
an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a particularly sulky
salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last, pulled up sharply.

"You're not listening!" she cried.

"Yes, I am; go on, my dear," said Mr. Chalk.

"What did I say she left her last place for, then?" demanded the lady.

Mr. Chalk started. He had been conscious of his wife's voice, and that
was all. "You said you were not surprised at her leaving," he replied,
slowly; "the only wonder to you was that a decent girl should have stayed
there so long."

Mrs. Chalk started and bit her lip. "Yes," she said, slowly. "Ye-es.
Go on; anything else?"

"You said the house wanted cleaning from top to bottom," said the
painstaking Mr. Chalk.

"Go on," said his wife, in a smothered voice. "What else did I say?"

"Said you pitied the husband," continued Mr. Chalk, thoughtfully.

Mrs. Chalk rose suddenly and stood over him. Mr. Chalk tried desperately
to collect his faculties.

"How dare you?" she gasped. "I've never said such things in my life.
Never. And I said that she left because Mr. Wilson, her master, was dead
and the family had gone to London. I've never been near the house; so
how could I say such things?"

Mr. Chalk remained silent.

"What made you think of such things?" persisted Mrs. Chalk.

Mr. Chalk shook his head; no satisfactory reply was possible. "My
thoughts were far away," he said, at last.

His wife bridled and said, "Oh, indeed!" Mr. Chalk's mother, dead some
ten years before, had taken a strange pride--possibly as a protest
against her only son's appearance--in hinting darkly at a stormy and
chequered past. Pressed for details she became more mysterious still,
and, saying that "she knew what she knew," declined to be deprived of the
knowledge under any consideration. She also informed her daughter-in-law
that "what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve," and that it was
better to "let bygones be bygones," usually winding up with the advice to
the younger woman to keep her eye on Mr. Chalk without letting him see
it.

"Peckham Rye is a long way off, certainly," added the indignant Mrs.
Chalk, after a pause. "It's a pity you haven't got something better to
think of, at your time of life, too."

Mr. Chalk flushed. Peckham Rye was one of the nuisances bequeathed by
his mother.

"I was thinking of the sea," he said, loftily.

Mrs. Cha