Enid was well aware that absence frequently makes the heart grow fonder, and that distance does lend enchantment to the view.  But she would not have put it in those exact words.

At last she began walking towards the house, telling herself that she felt oddly tired, and that it would be very pleasant, for once, to have a solitary cup of tea.  Her house-parlourmaid was shaping very nicely.  Thus the girl had evidently brought the lamps into the sitting-room, though she had forgotten to draw the curtains.

Enid knocked and rang.  She had a theory that the possession of a latchkey by their mistress makes servants slow to answer the door.

“There’s a person waiting for you in the drawing-room, ma’am.  She says she’s come down on purpose from London to see you.  She came just after you went out first.”

There swept over Enid Crofton a strong, sudden premonition of evil.  She realised that for the last ten days she had been secretly dreading that this would happen to her.  She blamed herself sharply, now that it was too late, for having done nothing further to help the Pipers; but she had hoped the five pounds would have kept them quiet.

“I’ll go upstairs and take off my things,” she said wearily.  “Bring me a cup of tea in my bedroom—­I don’t want anything to eat—­and then I’ll come down and see this person.”  She forced herself to add, “I suppose it’s a Mrs. Piper?”

The girl answered at once, “She didn’t give her name, ma’am.  She just said that she wanted to see you, and that it was urgent.  She’s not got very long; she wants to catch the six o’clock train from Telford.  She wouldn’t believe at first that you wasn’t in.”

Enid found some comfort in those words, and she made up her mind that she would linger upstairs as long as she possibly could, so as to cut short her coming interview with the tiresome young woman.  After all there was very little to say.  She had behaved in a kind and generous manner to her late husband’s servant, and she had already said she would do her best to help him again.

When she got upstairs she lit the two high brass candlesticks on the dressing-table, and then, after she had taken off her hat and long black woollen coat, she sat down in her easy-chair by the wood fire.  Soon there came a familiar rap and a welcome cup of tea.

She was sipping it, luxuriously, when there suddenly came a very different kind of rap on the door.  It was a sharp, insistent knock, and before she could call out “Come in,” the door opened, and a singular-looking figure advanced into the luxurious-looking, low-ceilinged bedroom.

“Excuse me coming up like this, Modam.  But I’m afraid of losing my train.”

The speaker was small and stout, with a sallow face which might once have held a certain gipsy-like charm, for, in the candlelight, the luminous dark eyes were by far its most arresting feature.  She wore a small, old-fashioned-looking, red velvet bonnet perched on her elaborately dressed hair.