Mr. Delavoye's
grand relations."

I suggested that mining rights might have gone with the freehold, but
Mrs. Ricardo quoted Uvo's opinion as to what still ailed Sir
Christopher Stainsby. She made it quite clear to me that our friend, at
any rate, still laboured under his old obsession, and that she herself
took it more seriously than she had professed before one confidence led
to another.

"But don't you tell him I told you!" she added as though we were
ourselves old friends. "The less you tell Mr. Delavoye of all we've been
talking about, the better turn you'll be doing me, Mr. Gillon. It was
just like him not to give away ancient history even to you, and I don't
think you're the one to tell him how I went and did it myself!"

I could have wished that she had taken that for granted; but at least
she felt too finely to bind me down to silence. Altogether I found her a
fine creature, certainly in face and form, and almost certainly at
heart, if one guessed even charitably at her past, and then at her life
in a hostile suburb with a neglectful churl of a husband.

But to admire the woman for her own sake was not to approve of her on
all other grounds; and during our friendly and almost fascinating chat I
contracted a fairly definite fear that was not removed by the manner of
its conclusion. Mrs. Ricardo had looked at a watch pinned to a pretty
but audacious blouse, and had risen rather hurriedly. But she had looked
at her watch just a minute too late; as we turned the corner of the
ruin, there was Delavoye hurrying through the brake towards us; and
though he was far enough off to conceal such confusion as Mrs. Ricardo
had shown at my appearance on the scene, and to come up saying that he
had found me at last, I could not but remember how he had shut himself
up for the morning, after advising me to go on the river.

I was uneasy about them both; but it was impossible to say a word to
anybody. He never spoke of her; that was another bad sign to my
suspicious mind. It was entirely from her that I had drawn my material
for suspicion, or rather for anxiety. I did not for a moment suppose
that there was anything more than a possibly injudicious friendship
between them; it was just the possibilities that stirred my sluggish
imagination; and I should not have thought twice about these but for
Uvo's marked reserve in speaking of the one other person with whom I now
knew that he was extremely unreserved. If only I had known it