icate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back
quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.

"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed
her when he joined the others.

"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?"

"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was."

"But I sent you to make sure."

"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's
somebody in the room already."

"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it."

"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and
one of them has been smoking."

Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner
he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections
in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject.

"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't
draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here."

Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate
inspiration.

"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depot and watch
the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things
everybody does."

This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements
open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad
track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of
unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the
suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy
when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.

"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens."

"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly.

"You don't know where I left it."

"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man
persisted.

Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings
was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out
into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had
left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway
when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them,
and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the
shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room
shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached
the door, and as the