formation just given to him. So there
was a coolness between his cousin and Wellesley, was there, a coolness
that amounted, said Tansley, to something stronger? Did it amount to
jealousy? Did the jealousy lead to----? But at that point Brent gave up
speculating. If there was anything in this new suggestion, Mrs. Saumarez
would hold the key. Once more he was face to face with the fact that had
steadily obtruded itself upon him during the last two days: that here in
this time-worn old place there were folks who had secrets and did things
in a curiously secret fashion.

Mrs. Saumarez's house stood a little way back from the street called
Abbey Gate, an old, apparently Early Jacobean mansion, set amidst the
elms for which Hathelsborough was famous, so profusely and to such a
height did they grow all over the town. A smart parlour-maid, who looked
inquisitively at him, and was evidently expecting his arrival, admitted
Brent, and led him at once along a half-lighted hall into a little room,
where the light of a shaded lamp shone on a snug and comfortable
interior and on rows of more books than young and pretty women generally
possess. Left alone for a few minutes, Brent glanced round the
well-filled shelves, and formed the opinion that Mrs. Saumarez went in
for very solid reading, chiefly in the way of social and political
economy. He began to see now why she and the murdered Mayor had been
such close friends--the subjects that apparently interested her had been
those in which Wallingford had always been deeply absorbed. Maybe, then,
Mrs. Saumarez had been behind the Reform party in Hathelsborough?--there
was a woman wire-puller at the back of these matters as a rule, he
believed--that sort of thing, perhaps, was Mrs. Saumarez's little hobby.
He turned from these speculations to find her at his elbow.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Brent," she said softly.

Brent looked attentively at her as he took the hand which she held out
to him. Seen at closer quarters he saw that she was a much prettier
woman than he had fancied; he saw too that, whatever her tastes might be
in the way of politics and sociology, she was wholly feminine, and not
above enhancing her charms by punctilious attention to her general
appearance and setting. She had been very quietly and even sombrely
dressed at the inquest that morning, but she was now in evening dress,
and her smart gown, her wealth of fair hair, her violet eyes, and the
rose tint of her deli