“She took me into a room, which I suppose was her own room.  She made signs, offering me tea.  It was done in the strangest way—­without the least appearance of kindness.  After what you have just said to me, I think I can in some degree interpret what was going on in her mind.  I believe she felt a hard-hearted interest in seeing a woman whom she supposed to be as unfortunate as she had once been herself.  I declined taking any tea, and tried to return to the subject of what I wanted in the house.  She paid no heed to me.  She pointed round the room; and then took me to a window, and pointed round the garden—­and then made a sign indicating herself.  ’My house; and my garden’—­that was what she meant.  There were four men in the garden—­and Geoffrey Delamayn was one of them.  I made another attempt to tell her that I wanted to speak to him.  But, no!  She had her own idea in her mind.  After beckoning to me to leave the window, she led the way to the fire-place, and showed me a sheet of paper with writing on it, framed and placed under a glass, and hung on the wall.  She seemed, I thought, to feel some kind of pride in her framed manuscript.  At any rate, she insisted on my reading it.  It was an extract from a will.”

“The will under which she had inherited the house?”

“Yes.  Her brother’s will.  It said, that he regretted, on his death-bed, his estrangement from his only sister, dating from the time when she had married in defiance of his wishes and against his advice.  As a proof of his sincere desire to be reconciled with her, before he died, and as some compensation for the sufferings that she had endured at the hands of her deceased husband, he left her an income of two hundred pounds a year, together with the use of his house and garden, for her lifetime.  That, as well as I remember, was the substance of what it said.”

“Creditable to her brother, and creditable to herself,” said Sir Patrick.  “Taking her odd character into consideration, I understand her liking it to be seen.  What puzzles me, is her letting lodgings with an income of her own to live on.”

“That was the very question which I put to her myself.  I was obliged to be cautious, and to begin by asking about the lodgers first—­the men being still visible out in the garden, to excuse the inquiry.  The rooms to let in the house had (as I understood her) been taken by a person acting for Geoffrey Delamayn—­his trainer, I presume.  He had surprised Hester Dethridge by barely noticing the house, and showing the most extraordinary interest in the garden.”

“That is quite intelligible, Miss Silvester.  The garden you have described would be just the place he wanted for the exercises of his employer—­plenty of space, and well secured from observation by the high walls all round.  What next?”

“Next, I got to the question of why she should let her house in lodgings at all.  When I asked her that, her face turned harder than ever.  She answered me on her slate in these dismal words:  ’I have not got a friend in the world.  I dare not live alone.’  There was her reason!  Dreary and dreadful, Sir Patrick, was it not?”