the next meal they would
be replaced by fresh ones. Mrs. Carkeek (I told myself) must have
surprised and interpreted a glance of mine. And yet I could not
remember having glanced at the bowl in her presence. And how on earth
had she guessed the very roses, the very shapes and colours I had
lightly wished for? This is only an instance, you understand.
Every day, and from morning to night, I happened on others, each slight
enough, but all together bearing witness to a ministering intelligence
as subtle as it was untiring.

"I am a light sleeper, as you know, with an uncomfortable knack of
waking with the sun and roaming early. No matter how early I rose at
Tresillack, Mrs. Carkeek seemed to have prevented me. Finally I had to
conclude that she arose and dusted and tidied as soon as she judged me
safely a-bed. For once, finding the drawing-room (where I had been
sitting late) 'redded up' at four in the morning, and no trace of a
plate of raspberries which I had carried thither after dinner and left
overnight, I determined to test her, and walked through to the kitchen,
calling her by name. I found the kitchen as clean as a pin, and the
fire laid, but no trace of Mrs. Carkeek. I walked upstairs and knocked
at her door. At the second knock a sleepy voice cried out, and
presently the good woman stood before me in her nightgown, looking (I
thought) very badly scared.

"'No,' I said, 'it's not a burglar. But I've found out what I wanted,
that you do your morning's work over night. But you mustn't wait for me
when I choose to sit up. And now go back to your bed like a good soul,
whilst I take a run down to the beach.'

"She stood blinking in the dawn. Her face was still white.

"'Oh, miss,' she gasped, 'I made sure you must have seen something!'

"'And so I have,' I answered, 'but it was neither burglars nor ghosts.'

"'Thank God!' I heard her say as she turned her back to me in her grey
bedroom--which faced the north. And I took this for a carelessly pious
expression and ran downstairs, thinking no more of it.

"A few days later I began to understand.

"The plan of Tresillack house (I must explain) was simplicity itself.
To the left of the hall as you entered was the dining-room; to the right
the drawing-room, with a boudoir beyond. The foot of the stairs faced
the front door, and beside it, passing a glazed inner door, you found
two others right and left, the left opening on the kitchen, the right on