trol. There was a twitching of his lips which might, she felt, in a
little time become contagious. She averted her head.

"That's all right," said Mr. Vyner, with a sigh of relief. "I was half
afraid that I had offended you."

CHAPTER VII

TO the great relief of Mr. Truefitt's imagination, his sister suddenly
ceased from all comment upon the irregularity of his hours. Unprepared,
by the suddenness of the change, he recited mechanically, for the first
day or two, the reasons he had invented for his lateness, but their
reception was of so chilling a nature that his voice was scarcely
audible at the finish. Indeed, when he came home one evening with a
perfectly true story of a seaman stabbed down by the harbour, Mrs.
Chinnery yawned three times during the narration, and Captain Trimblett
shook his head at him.

"True or not," said the latter, after Mrs. Chinnery had left the room,
"it doesn't matter. It isn't worth while explaining when explanations
are not asked for."

"Do you think she knows?" inquired Mr. Truefitt, with bated voice.

"She knows something," replied the captain. "I _believe_ she knows all
about it, else she wouldn't keep so quiet. Why not tell her straight
out? Tell her when she comes in, and get it over. She's got to know some
day."

"Poor Susan!" said Mr. Truefitt, with feeling. "I'm afraid she'll feel
it. It's not nice to have to leave home to make room for somebody else.
And she won't stay in it with another woman, I'm certain."

"Here she comes," said the captain, getting up. "I'll go out for a
little stroll, and when I come back I shall expect to find you've made a
clean breast of it."

Mr. Truefitt put out a hand as though to detain him, and then, thinking
better of it, nodded at him with an air of great resolution, and puffed
furiously at his pipe. Under cover of clouds of smoke he prepared for
the encounter.

Closing the door gently behind him, the captain, after a moment's
indecision, drifted down the road. A shower of rain had brought out
sweet odours from the hedgerow opposite, and a touch of salt freshened
the breeze that blew up the river. Most of the inhabitants of the Vale
were in bed, and the wet road was lonely under the stars. He walked as
far as a little bridge spanning a brook that ran into the river, and
seating himself on the low parapet smoked thoughtfully. His mind went
back to his own marriage many years before, and to his children, whom
he had placed, on his w