Roots to conversation, so Miss Roots alone had
the power of drawing him out to the best advantage.

"Indeed?" said Rickman in a voice devoid of all intelligence.

Now if anything could have drawn Mr. Rickman out it was Antimachus of
Colophon. Four weeks ago he would have been more interested in
Antimachus than Miss Roots herself, he would have talked about him by
the hour together. So that when he said nothing but "Indeed?" she
perceived that something was the matter with him. But she also
perceived that he was anxious to be talked to, therefore she talked
on.

Miss Roots was right; though his mind was unable to take in a word she
said to him, he listened, soothed by the singular refinement of her
voice. It was a quality he had not noticed in it four weeks ago.
Suddenly a word flashed out, dividing the evening with a line of
light.

"So you've been staying in Harmouth?"

He started noticeably, and looked at her as if he had not heard. Miss
Roots seemed unaware of having said anything specially luminous; she
repeated her question with a smile.

"Why?" he asked. "Have you been there?"

"I've not only been there, I was born there."

He looked at her. Miss Roots had always been, to say the least of it,
prosaic, and now it was as if poetry had dropped from her lips, as if
she had said, "I too was born in Arcadia."

"I suppose," she said, "you saw that beautiful old house by the
river?"

"Which beautiful old house by the river?"

"Court House. You see it from the bridge. You must have noticed it."

"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean."

"Did you happen to see or hear anything of the lady who lives in it?
Miss Lucia Harden?"

"I--I must have seen her, but I can't exactly say. Do you know her?"

His words seemed to be torn from him in pieces, shaken by the violent
beating of his heart.

"Know her?" said Miss Roots. "I lived five years with her. I taught
her."

He looked at her again in wonder, in wonder and a sort of tenderness.
For a second his heart had come to life again and leapt like a lunatic
to his lips. Happily his wits were there before it. He stroked his
upper lip, as if brushing away some wild phrase that sat there.

"Then I'm sure," he said, contriving a smile, "that Miss Harden is an
exceedingly well educated lady."

Miss Roots' hazel eyes looked up at him intelligently; but as they met
that unnatural smile of gallantry there was a queer compression of her
shrewd and strenuous face. She cha