There was no sound from the bed.  A complete and absolute silence had succeeded to all the restlessness.

Finally he concluded that it was impossible to lie there any longer and watch such a crisp little roll of paper still untorn.  He got up, stepped delicately on to the wide hearth, and pulled the paper towards him with a little scratching sound.  There was a sigh from the bed, and he paused.  Then he lifted it, stepped back to his warm place, lay down, and placing his paws firmly upon the paper, began to tear scraps out of it with his white teeth.

“Oh, be quiet!” came the weary voice from the bed.

He paused, considered; then he tore two more pieces.  But it did not taste as it should; it was a little sticky, and too stiff.  He stood up once more, turned round four times and lay down with a small grunt.

In the morning the maid who swept up the ashes swept up these fragments too.  She noticed a wet scrap of a picture postcard, with the word “Selby” printed in the corner.  Then she threw that piece, too, into the dustpan.

CHAPTER IV

(I)

Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of “he’s” and “she’s” and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers.  The Major, Mr. Partington (still absent), and Frank were discussed continually and exhaustively; and, so far as the subjects themselves ranged, there was hardly an unimportant detail that did not come under notice, and hardly an important fact that did.  Gertie officially passed, of course, as Mrs. Trustcott always.

A couple of mornings after Frank had begun his work at the jam factory, Mrs. Partington, who had stepped round the corner to talk with a friend for an hour or so, returned to find Gertie raging.  She raged in her own way; she was as white as a sheet; she uttered ironical and unintelligible sentences, in which Frank’s name appeared repeatedly, and it emerged presently that one of the Mission-ladies had been round minding other folks’ business, and that Gertie would thank that lady to keep her airs and her advice to herself.

Now Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie was not the Major’s wife, and Gertie knew that she knew it; and Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie knew that she knew it.  Yet, officially, all was perfectly correct; Gertie wore a wedding-ring, and there never was the hint that she had not a right to it.  It was impossible, therefore, for Mrs. Partington to observe out loud that she understood perfectly what the Mission-lady had been talking about.  She said very little; she pressed her thin lips together and let Gertie alone.  The conversations that morning were of the nature of disconnected monologues from Gertie with long silences between.

It was an afternoon of silent storm.  The Major was away in the West End somewhere on mysterious affairs; the children were at school, and the two women went about, each knowing what was in the mind of the other, yet each resolved to keep up appearances.