JUDITH'S VAGARIES. HOW SHE BROUGHT SIR ALFRED CHALLIS, INSENSIBLE, TO ROYD HALL IN A MOTOR. A MESSAGE PER MR. BROWNRIGG TO THE RECTOR. HOW TO PROBE THE MYSTERY. JUDITH'S RESERVE. PUBLIC IMPATIENCE. THE CHAUFFEUR'S TESTIMONY

Royd Hall was at its quietest that morning when the young man Samuel answered the bell from his master's bedroom, and found the Baronet still in bed, at a few minutes after nine. The old gentleman must have dozed off again after ringing it, because Samuel had to knock twice before he said "Come in."

"I thought you rang, sir," said Samuel.

"I did ring. Who was that went away in the motor five minutes ago?"

Samuel was not going to admit that the motor had been gone a full quarter of an hour. It would have been disrespectful to suggest that his master had been asleep unawares, so he accepted the five-minute estimate. "I believe it was Miss Judith, sir; but I couldn't say, to be certain."

"Just ask. What o'clock is it?"

"It's gone nine, some minutes, sir."

"This coffee's cold ... never mind!... I suppose I went to sleep again.... Oh, Samuel!..." Samuel, departing, paused. "See that the cold douche is cold. It was neither one thing nor the other yesterday."

"Sure to be cold, sir, now! Because both the other gentlemen's run it on." To those acquainted with the heating gear of bathrooms the way the old supply proves lukewarm, and nothing bracing comes to pass, is well known. The Baronet referred to it again as he met Samuel returning on his way to the bath. Was he sure it was cold? Yes, Samuel was; and that was Miss Judith, he found, that had gone off in the motor, after breakfasting early in her own room. As witness Mr. Elphinstone and Miss Judith's maid Tilley.

Sir Murgatroyd never wondered much at anything his family did. He had a beautiful faith that everything was all right always, and asked few or no questions. Still, he would wonder a little, tentatively, at rare intervals. Only he strained at gnats and swallowed camels. This time he swallowed the camel of Judith's early departure after a solitary breakfast. That was all right—it was some appointment with the Duchess, "or something." But he strained at the gnat of her having left her little attendant behind. He had a superstition that the absence of any two persons, known to be together, was never a thing to cause anxiety; but he was liable to fidgeting about any of his family unaccounted for, if he supposed them to be alone. There may be other people like him.

It was this superstition that caused Sir Murgatroyd to say to Lady Arkroyd—through a door between their rooms that he opened on purpose, having become aware of the departure of her ladyship's maid—"What has Judith gone out so early for?" To which the reply was: "You must speak plainer. I can't hear you while you shave." For during shaving the shaver's attention cannot be fully given to speech, owing to the interdependence of razor, eye, and jaw in a delicate relation to one another, to say nothing of the care needed to preserve a soapless mouth.

So Sir Murgatroyd wound up his shave before he spoke again, adding to his first question the words, "In the motor."

"How do you know she went in the motor?"

"Samuel said so. Besides, I heard it go."

"I suppose I was asleep.... Oh no!—I can't account for Judith's vagaries. She goes her own way. I suppose she's taken the child with her—her maid, I mean?"

"Why, no, she hasn't! That's just it...."

"I didn't mean that. I meant that if she hadn't, Cintilla would know." That is to say, her ladyship washed her hands of any complicity in the Bart.'s superstition spoken of above. She always, in talking of her husband, to the Duchess for instance, affected a Spartan stolidity; saying that no one who did not know him as she did would ever suspect Murgatroyd of being such an hysterical character.

Nevertheless, she felt curiosity about Judith, and bade Mrs. Cream, her own lady's-maid, summon Cintilla to give evidence. Only first she closed the door into her husband's room, not to be open to any imputation of hysteria. The Baronet accepted his exclusion the more readily that he had just rung for Samuel. For his relation towards that young man, who was officially his valet, was that he allowed him to help him on with his coat as soon as he himself was otherwise complete. He had to, or Samuel wouldn't have been his valet.

It was nearly a quarter to ten when her ladyship said to her son-in-law and Mr. Brownrigg, the only guest outside the family, that we were frightfully late at breakfast. She said it on the long terrace the breakfast-room opens on, where the two gentlemen had been for some time wondering whether they were to have any. A peacock shrieked a condemnation of late breakfast; and the Baronet, appearing last, took the sins of the congregation on his shoulders. His lateness eclipsed all previous lateness.

But he must needs make matters worse; for after communications about Sibyl, and record of her husband's conviction that that young lady would pay attention to her medical adviser, and not appear at breakfast, he inquired about Judith's escapade, as a Baronet inquires when he really wants to know, not as mere passing chat. To which her ladyship replied, as one whose patience is tried by an inopportune husband: "There, my dear, Judith is all right if you'll only leave her alone. I know all about her. She's gone to go somewhere with Thyringia, and won't be back till I don't know when. Now don't hinder, and do let's have breakfast.... No, Elphinstone, don't sound the gong on my account. We's all here. I do hate that banging." For her husband, the fidget, had suggested absurdly that perhaps Judith was back, and didn't know breakfast was ready. "Besides, she had breakfasted, anyhow!" adds her ladyship.

Lord Felixthorpe has a word of illumination for the Baronet, who acquiesced in the will of a senior officer. It causes him to recur to the subject again, saying, "Frank says Judith asked for the car yesterday ..." and to be again extinguished with an impatient, "My dear!—do you suppose I don't know all about it?" from her ladyship.

When that scanty gathering of four persons sat down to breakfast at the table where last year this story told of so large an assemblage, Royd Park and mansion alike seemed a haven of serenest peace, sheltered from impact with the outer world, and unconscious of its turmoil. Every sound of living creatures was as good as silence—articulate with its denials of discord. Even the peacock's screech upon the lawn fell in with the music of the wood-doves in the beech-woods—just a high staccato note; no more!—and the gobble of a turkey from the stable-yard, across the big red wall there, was modulated to its place as an instrument the composer should not use too freely, though full of spirit. A million undertones of insects; a perspective of scattered voices afar, each fainter than the last; the sound of the manger-chain of a horse in the groom's hands—all agreed that whatever that railway-whistle might mean about the world a league and more away, here in this sacred enclosure was peace—peace guaranteed by a bygone peace of vanished years, and a security of entail. Peace without end, Amen!

So much so that when the motor-trumpet was suddenly audible, but unmistakably, beyond the Park Gate on the road from the village, each of the four at breakfast looked at some other, and said—there it was! But they were undisturbed in their minds, and gave various consideration to Yorkshire ham and filleted plaice and potted beef and Keiller, and all that one associates with clean damask and steaming urns. The Baronet only said, with apparent sense of relief: "I thought she could hardly have gone for the whole day." To which his wife replied: "Oh, my dear, how funny you are! Don't you know Judith?" And then they talked current topics of the day—Raisuli and Employer's Liability.

The motor-trumpet close at hand, and wheels! Now we shall know. But not so soon that we need leave Morocco for a moment. And Mr. Brownrigg will take half a cup more coffee.

What is that, Elphinstone? May Mr. Elphinstone speak to her ladyship? He may; so he does, in an undertone. Her ladyship says, "I'll come," and then to Mr. Brownrigg, "The milk's beside you," and follows the butler from the room. All the three men look at each other. "Something wrong!" says Lord Felixthorpe. He and the Baronet look the inquiry at one another, "Ought we not to follow?" and both answer, "Yes!" at once, aloud. Mr. Brownrigg neglects his coffee and follows, looking concerned and apprehensive.

There is a lobby between the dining-room and the entrance-hall to the house, and her ladyship meets them in it, returning. She says to her husband: "Oh, my dear!—you will have to come, about this." She is looking ashy white, and when she has spoken sinks down on a wall-seat in a recess, saying: "Oh dear! Do go out and see." She is quite overcome by something.

A new identity comes suddenly on Sir Murgatroyd. "See to her, Frank," he says. "Is Mrs. Cream there—yes?—See to your mistress, Cream." And goes out.

The butler is just beyond the lobby, and the firm voice of the Baronet is audible above his terrified undertone. "Who is it?... Sir Alfred Challis?... Badly?" The speaker then passes out of hearing, going to the entrance-hall.

Mrs. Cream has come, and finds that her mistress has not fainted away, though not far short of it. Her ladyship rallies, saying to her son-in-law: "Never mind me, Frank!" Whereupon Lord Felixthorpe says: "You'll excuse me, Brownrigg, but I must see to my wife. She'll be frightened if I don't." And goes three steps at a time up a side-staircase, leaving Mr. Brownrigg embarrassed, and feeling in the way.

When Sir Murgatroyd set foot outside his house, the first thing he saw was the face of his daughter, still seated in the car, supporting the head of the man who was with her, but shrinking from it, covered as it was with some shawl or cloth, in terror. The first words he heard, above the drumming beat of the stationary car's machinery and the hysterical excitement of the chauffeur, dismounted from his seat, were a relief to him. His daughter, at any rate, was uninjured, or only shaken at the worst. "I am not the least hurt," she said, with perfect self-command, though in a bewildered, stony way. Her dress was not soiled or seriously disordered, so she could not have been thrown from the car.

His hearers at first thought M. Louis incoherent. "C'Était la faute de ce sacrÉ aveugle—qui m'y trouvera À redire—moi? Qu'ai-je pu faire, moi?—c'est l'arbre du frein qui m'a trompÉ. J'ai tirÉ la manivelle—oui!—et elle m'a trompÉ. Peste soit de cet aveugle...." And so on. He was understood by no one.

"Get this man out of the way; he's no use. Where's Bullett?" Thus the Baronet. "Now, Elphinstone, get that deck-chair—the long one, you know—look sharp about it!" Elphinstone departed, as Bullett, the model groom, came running. "The roan, in the dogcart," said his master; and then: "Yes, my dear, you shall tell me directly." For Judith was beginning: "It has not been my fault...." She was speaking like a woman in a dream, or one half waking from one.

Her father only glanced at the white face with the blood on it, then covered it again. "He might be able to get some brandy down," said he. He stood with his finger on Challis's pulse till it came, and then tried to get him to swallow some, but without success. "We must get him in," he said. "Where's Frank?" Samuel testified that his lordship was just coming downstairs. The fact was that his lordship, although his solicitude for his wife had been appreciated, had been told not to be absurd, but to go away and make himself useful.

He arrived just as the long deck-chair was brought—one such as one sees on passenger boats for India and China—and assisted in transporting the man who lay absolutely insensible on it to the room he had occupied when he had visited the house as a guest—the room where he missed that postscript of Marianne's, and probably sowed the seeds of all this mischief. It was easy for three to carry the chair—one on either side and one behind—so the Baronet left it to his son-in-law and Elphinstone and Samuel, and went to speak to Bullett, who had just arrived with the dogcart. On his way, coming from the lobby, he met Mr. Brownrigg, looking horribly shocked.

"Is it Challis?" said that gentleman. The Baronet nodded.

"It's the author," said he. "Is my wife still there?" He pointed to the lobby.

"She has gone upstairs to Lady Felixthorpe, I think. Can I be of any service?"

"A thousand thanks! I don't know of anything.... Yes, I do, though. My groom is just going to bring the doctor. Will you ride with him and call at the Rectory?—tell Taylor of this, and get him to come at once. He and Mr. Challis—Sir Alfred Challis I should say—were great friends. He'll come."

"I will go with pleasure," said Mr. Brownrigg. He went with pleasure, evidently. It is, of course, a great satisfaction to be of use in any painful crisis.

Sir Murgatroyd, as he turned to the entrance-door again, met Judith, who was accompanied by her little maid, terrified beyond measure, but behaving well. She gave an inanimate face to her father to kiss, saying collectedly, but in the same stony way: "There really is no occasion for anxiety about me. I am perfectly safe. Only don't ask me to talk about it now." Her father followed her in silence to the door of her room, when she turned and spoke again, after a visible effort that failed. "Is he killed?" she said, forcing the word out.

"Oh no!—no, no!—no such thing! Stunned—contused—that sort of thing! I've sent Bullett for Pordage. I should have sent the car, but Monsieur Louis isn't in a state to manage it. There would have been another accident.... What?"

"Tell them—mamma and Sibyl—not to disturb me. I will tell you after.... No! When the doctor has seen him, tell my little maid here. She will bring me word." And then Judith, whose beauty had lost nothing by the shock she has sustained—if anything, the reverse—vanishes into her room, and her father hears the key in the lock turned significantly. In the old Baronet's look now, roused as he is from his easy-going homeliness, and with a certain resolve growing on him, one sees that that beauty is not inherited from her mother alone. He goes straight to the room where the injured man lies, still insensible and motionless, still with a low pulse that neither gains nor loses. The doctor cannot be very long, if Bullett finds him at home. His practice is to remain at home in the morning.

"Do you know anything of all this?" Sir Murgatroyd asks the question of his wife and younger daughter in the bedroom of the latter, where he has found them, white and frightened—talking in a nervous undertone, but quickly, and as folk talk who can tell things.

"She has been seeing him. Sibyl says so."

"Seeing Challis?"

"Of course. But she hasn't spoken of him to me for a month—quite a month." This was her ladyship.

"I told you it would be no use, madre," says Sibyl. "But you wouldn't listen to me."

"My dear—how unreasonable you are! How was it possible for your father and me to allow it to go on? You may say what you like, but he is a married man...."

"All I say is, you made matters worse."

"Never mind that now!" said the Baronet. "What I want to hear is—how did Sib know this was going on?"

Sibyl is quite clear on that point. "Judith met him in the Park the day before we came, last month. Old Mrs. Inskip saw them together, behaving like a couple of—like lovers." Her tone is one of reprobation and disgust. She goes on to tell how she had interviewed the centenarian on the subject, and been fully enlightened.

"That is all at an end now, anyhow." So says the Baronet, but when his wife says "Why?" he does not answer, but goes on as to another point reflectively. "Judith must have met him on her way to Thanes.... Where did he join her—this morning, I mean?"

Both ladies strike a new clue. "Was she going to Thanes at all?" And Sibyl adds: "I don't believe she was."

"You said you knew she was, TherÈse," says Sir Murgatroyd, addressing his wife by her name—a thing that always means, with him, a definite attitude of some sort. She is on her mettle directly, for expostulation or defence.

"My dear, I never said anything of the sort. She talked yesterday of going to-day, and, of course, I supposed she had. That little girl of hers only said she said she might not be back to lunch." Her ladyship exonerates herself at some length, denying what she had said plainly an hour before at breakfast.

Her husband treats the point as an open one, to avoid indefinite discussion of it. "I see," he says. "It was only your inference. I wonder if that crazy French chap has come to his senses. It's no use my talking to him. I can't understand three words he says." Then, at Sibyl's suggestion, he went away to his son-in-law, who was still with the injured man, to get him to interview the bewildered chauffeur, and see what could be made of his testimony. During Lord Felixthorpe's absence he remained by Challis, still perfectly insensible on the bed, but apparently only stunned, like a man in a deep sleep. He breathed regularly, and though his pulse dragged a little, it was quite steady. Sir Murgatroyd felt only moderate uneasiness about him. He had himself been thrown from his horse in the hunting-field, and remained insensible till next day.

Lord Felixthorpe returned. The chauffeur's account of the thing, now that his mind was more settled, was that, in order to avoid a collision with a man in the road, he had swerved at a sharp corner. Challis started to his feet at the moment, and was thrown over the edge of the car, falling on his head in the road. "Mademoiselle"—so ran M. Louis' testimony—"Était terriblement ÉpouvantÉe, mais elle ne s'est pas Évanouie," Lord Felixthorpe translated, for the benefit of the Baronet. "Alors," said M. Louis, "nous avons soulevÉ le corps, nous deux, dans l'automobile, et Mademoiselle m'a criÉ—en avant, vite, vite! Et moi, j'ai retournÉ vite, vite! Qu'est ce qu'on aurait voulu de plus?" Questioned as to where Challis had got into the car, he replied—at the Park Gate; as to what he understood its destination to be, that he did not know anything except that it was about forty miles off, but that Monsieur had a map with the route marked; as to when Miss Arkroyd had requisitioned the car, that she had spoken about it to him overnight. Milord had instructed him that it would not be required during the day, as he himself should monter À cheval, and Miladi would remain at home. It was to be at Mademoiselle's disposal, or Miladi Arkroyd's. "Effectivement," said he, in an injured tone, "j'ai suivi mes renseignements, et je ne suis pas À blÂmer." His lordship had then explained to him that he need not be so touchy; no one was blaming him. There was another point. Who was the man who caused the car to swerve, and was he hurt? Monsieur Louis replied with the Frenchest of shrugs, "Mais je ne sais pas! Comment voulez-vous que je sache?—quelque vagabond—quelque mendiant!" He turned the conversation to the damage done to a tyre.

Had Lord Felixthorpe heard the chauffeur's words on his first arrival, a suspicion he now felt that M. Louis was keeping something back would have been greatly strengthened. Sir Murgatroyd may have noticed the discrepancy, but he said nothing at the time. His only remark was, "We shall know more of this soon."

Presently Lord Felixthorpe said: "It certainly does occur to me that my sister-in-law would be able to contribute some valuable information, and I do not understand that she is any the worse for this mishap, fright apart. Why should we not...?" He stopped short; for his father-in-law had touched him with his finger, saying only, "Frank!" The manner of it made him end with, "Why—do you know anything?"

"When was that Bill to go into Committee—the Deceased Wife's Sister—you know?"

"What's to-day? Saturday? It was yesterday, Friday. Why?... Do you suppose...?"

"It may have something to do with this—mind you, I only say may have!... I suppose the Times has come?"

"I'll see." He went out and spoke to Elphinstone over the great staircase, and returned. "I've told him to bring the papers here."

"Yes—here we are!" said the Baronet, five minutes after, controlling an outspread sheet of last night's Debates. He went on, reading scrapwise: "'Lord Shaftesbury moved amendment to remove from Bill retrospective character ... very indistinctly heard in gallery ... no real hardship would be inflicted by amendment ... persons who had contracted these marriages fully conscious of legal consequences involved' ... hm-hum!" and so on. "Where's the end of it? ... oh—here! 'Amendment withdrawn.' Yes, Frank, that may have something to do with it—may have a great deal!"

"I'm not sure that I follow. Has it to do with...?" He dropped his voice, and looked towards the motionless figure on the bed.

"Of course it has ... he won't hear—you needn't be uneasy. I was just like that.... Well!—we'll talk outside if you like.... Yes, look at this, Frank: Prorogation is next Wednesday, when this Bill will receive the Royal Assent, and become law. Until next Wednesday at midday, or thereabouts, Challis's wife isn't his wife, and any woman he marries on Monday or Tuesday is. He couldn't even be convicted of bigamy unless his first marriage was held legal, and that would be rather discourteous to the Royal Assent on Wednesday. Now do you see?"

"Surely you never can imagine...."

"Well!" "Surely you never can imagine that Sir Challis and Ju were going to make a runaway match of it, to outwit the action of this Bill...."

"I can only see this," says the Baronet: "that if they did not do so, they were losing the only chance they had left of making an honourable match of any sort or kind. Isn't that the doctor?"

It is the footstep of the roan, unmistakable, and the wheels of the dogcart, at speed. It is poor little Lizarann's friend, Dr. Sidrophel. But all his old look has left him—a look as though he was born to be amused, and found his patients diverting—as he comes quickly to Challis's room, meeting the two gentlemen on the way, to whom he speaks very little. He nods once or twice, in reply to a brief abstract of the accident, saying only, "Let's have a look at him!" He finds time to say that the Rector could not come, but would come later. There was a good deal to be done. The Baronet did not seem to understand this.

The household has fought shy of touching an insensible patient, pending a doctor on the way, especially as there is no visible hÆmorrhage. The blood from a cut on the temple was not renewed when the face was wiped with a sponge on his first arrival at the house. The doctor makes a very rapid examination. "You wish him to remain here, Sir Murgatroyd?" he says.

"To remain here? Of course I do."

"Then I must have his clothes off first. The cut's nothing on the forehead. That can wait."

The coat must be sacrificed, but it can't be helped. Slit up the sleeves, and off with it! Better than jarring him about in his present state. Once wardrobe-saving is discarded, it is easy work to get the author in trim for a careful overhauling. No bones broken, is the verdict. All the worse! His head took most of his weight, and bore the shock. A broken knee-joint might have spared his brain. As it is, Dr. Pordage seems to think the net volumes may come slower in the future. Besides, you never can tell at first about the spine in cases of this sort.

For the present, concession must be made to treatment. It never does to do absolutely nothing. So let's have mustard and hot water to the feet, and ammonia to the nostrils, and try to get a little brandy down his throat. But quiet is the thing. Presently, all that seems feasible has been done, and quiet is to have its opportunity. Still, quite insensible!

Ought not Mrs. Challis, or Lady Challis, whichever she is, to be communicated with? The question is a joint-stock one in which Lady Arkroyd and Sibyl have shares, having come into conference. Of course, they were not on terms—her ladyship says this—but is that our concern?

"I shouldn't put it on that, Lady Arkroyd," says the doctor. "He'll probably be conscious in a few hours. Better not alarm her needlessly. If he continues unconscious for twenty-four hours ... why, then we might think about it. But I don't suppose him to be in any danger." The speaker's serious manner, unlike himself, seemed out of keeping with his light estimate of Challis's danger.

"We haven't got her address, so we can't, and there's no use talking about it. Unless Judith knows. Only it seems she's not to be got at." This is Sibyl, not without asperity.

"How is Miss Arkroyd?" says the doctor, whose emphasis on the verb means, "I am conscious that I ought to have asked before, and my doing it now is rather a formality." Lady Arkroyd testifies that Judith is in her room lying down, but was all right when she spoke to her through the door—oh yes!—she seemed perfectly right, but had locked herself in, and wanted to be quiet. The Baronet says, to his wife only, "Perhaps we had better leave her alone, TherÈse." And TherÈse replies, "Oh, I'm sure I don't want to meddle with her." Impatience with Miss Arkroyd is in the air. She is credited with being the underlying cause of all this disturbance.

There is a surprise in the bush for her father; only half-informed, so far. For the doctor, departing, pauses and says gravely, hesitatingly: "I believe—but I don't know—that the inquest will be on Monday, or Tuesday."

"The inquest!—Why inquest? What inquest?" The Baronet is absolutely in the dark about everything but Challis's mishap. His wife, better informed by the groom during the doctor's visit to his patient, touches him on the arm, saying, "My dear, Dr. Pordage is referring to the man ..." and falters.

"There was a man killed," says Sibyl abruptly. "We supposed you knew."

"A man killed! Good God! I knew nothing. What man?"

Sibyl's husband overhears, and comes quickly. "What is that about a man killed?" he says. He also is completely taken aback.

Then Lady Arkroyd says again. "We thought you knew." And the doctor follows, saying collectedly, "Jim Coupland, the man at the Abbey Well, was struck by the motor-car and killed. The Rector found him lying dead in the road. That is why Mr. Taylor did not accompany me. He will be here shortly, and will tell you more than I can." Sir Murgatroyd gazes from one to the other, shocked and speechless. Lord Felixthorpe, nearly as much concerned, says below his breath, "That miscreant Rossier never said a word to me of this." But he is preoccupied and ill-at-ease about his wife, who will be none the better just now for upsets and tragic surprises. He persuades her to go back to the quiet of her room, in spite of her protests that he is nonsensical, saying as he goes away with her, "We'll have that French scoundrel up when I come back. I won't be three minutes." But he was a little longer, and when he returned, the doctor, who was wanted elsewhere, was on his way back. He found his father-in-law alone in the library, sitting with his head on his hand, as though completely oppressed and stunned with what he had heard. "Oh, Frank," said the old gentleman, "this is horrible!" He had made sure that the patient upstairs was properly looked to, and had sat down to rest and be quiet until Athelstan Taylor's arrival. But the chauffeur might be sent for.

A female servant, told off to mount guard over the patient, and report any change or movement, had been at her post about a quarter of an hour, when Miss Arkroyd opened the door and came into the room. "Don't go, Hetty," was all she said. She looked as white—so Hetty reported afterwards—as the clean wristband that young woman made use of in illustration. Also, her hair was all coming down. She stood at the bedside maybe a minute, maybe two—Hetty couldn't say—then touched the inanimate hand on the coverlid. "Oh no; she never took hold," said Hetty. "Touched and drew back like!" Then she turned to the girl and said, "Have you heard what the doctor said?" rather as if she took scanty information for granted. "But, of course, I could tell her all right," said Hetty, who had been taking notice. "Only she didn't any more than just stop to hear, but went. My word!—she was looking bad."

She must have slipped back quietly into her room after this, taking the young girl Cintilla with her. For when her mother, an hour later, after consultation as to the wisdom of the step, went to her door to try again for admission, it was opened by Cintilla, and Judith's voice said, "Oh yes, come in; I want to hear what the doctor said." But her speech was so composed as scarcely to comply with the show of feeling the circumstances demanded, even if the runaway match idea was not a well-grounded one.

M. Rossier did not make a good figure when summoned to appear in the library. He bristled and stood on his defence at once, instead of making, as requested, a simple statement of his version of the facts. Perhaps Sir Murgatroyd would have done more wisely not to remind a witness under examination that he himself was a Justice of the Peace; it tended to invest him with the character of a Juge d'Instruction, and M. Louis with that of "the accused." The latter was as strange to the idea of waiting for a proof of guilt as the former to that of demanding a proof of innocence.

Oh yes!—there was a man in the road—what did M. Louis know? He came from a sentier by the roadside. But, said his master, speaking French de rigueur, as English was not understood, "Cet homme Était au mi-chemin," meaning in the middle of the road. M. Louis misunderstood, or pretended to. "J'avais passÉ le mi-chemin," said he, meaning, apparently, half-way to the village. Then he tried to assist by speaking English. "He wass bloke ze hackross," and then finished naturally with, "Que diable allait il faire au milieu de la rue?"

"Ou—avez—vous—vu—derniÈrement—cet homme?" said the Baronet, a loud word at a time, to make sure of reaching that strange organism, a foreigner's brain. M. Louis understood, anyhow.

"A peine l'ai-je vu! Je n'ai fait que jeter un coup d'oeil, et pst!—il est disparu. Je ne l'ai pas cru blessÉ. Pour moi, il n'a pas souffert la moindre Égratignure. Que voulez-vous? On ne peut pas avoir l'oeil À tout!" But his speech was not absolutely consistent, for he added, "Pourquoi diable ne put-il s'abriter sous la haie?" He evidently thought the road belonged to the motor interest, and that the world ought to run for the nearest sheltered corner at the sound of his horn.

Lord Felixthorpe endeavoured to impress him with the advisability of telling the truth, as a mere matter of policy. There would be a case to go to a Jury, unless the inquest decided that Jim Coupland had died by the Visitation of Providence. But M. Louis might feel secure of fair treatment; and, unless he had sinned grossly, need be under no apprehension of serious consequences to himself. As the chauffeur knew he had sinned grossly, in not slacking speed at the curve, his apprehensions continued. But he seemed convinced, when he went away, that it might be wisest to say the least possible for the present.

"We must look out sharp," said Sir Murgatroyd, "and make sure the Coroner's Jury is fairly chosen. I can't have any leniency shown to County Families, Frank. I'm inclined now towards seeing what I can make of Judith. I see no use putting it off.... By-the-bye, Frank, what did that story-telling Mossoo mean by talking about a blind man—avoogle's blind, isn't it?—and then saying he hardly saw Jim?... what?..."

"I didn't hear him say anything about a blind man."

"No, no—before you came—when he first came back. He said 'avoogle.'"

"I expect he knows all about it. See what Judith has to say!"

Sir Murgatroyd didn't seem at all in a hurry for his interview with his daughter. He hung about, finishing topics up. He dropped his voice to say, "Poor Jim! Taylor said he was just expecting his little girl back. And now she'll come back and find him lying dead."

"Ah—the nice little girl, Lizarann. Yes—I had forgotten Lizarann. Poor little woman!" For remember it was this young swell who had made Lizarann's acquaintance near two years since, in Tallack Street. Do you recollect?—when William Rufus called him Scipio.