But Mrs. Pooley never flagged, possibly because her ideas were vaguer and more miscellaneous, and therefore less exhausting.  It was she who now urged Mrs. Eliott on.  This year Mrs. Pooley was going in for thought-power, and for mind-control, and had drawn Mrs. Eliott in with her.  They still kept it up for hours together, and still they dreaded the disastrous invasions of Miss Proctor.

Miss Proctor rode roughshod over the thought-power, and trampled contemptuously on the mind-control.  Mrs. Gardner’s attitude was mysterious and unsatisfactory.  She seemed to stand serenely on the shore of the deep sea where Mrs. Eliott and Mrs. Pooley were for ever plunging and sinking, and coming up again, bobbing and bubbling, to the surface.  Her manner implied that she would die rather than go in with them; it also suggested that she knew rather more about the thought-power and the mind-control than they did; but that she did not wish to talk so much about it.

Mr. Eliott, dexterous as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity.  He had a secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject.  His spirit no longer searched for Dr. Gardner’s across the welter of his wife’s drawing-room, knowing that it would find it at the club.

Now, in October, about four o’clock on the Thursday after Peggy’s birthday, Canon Wharton and Miss Proctor met at Mrs. Eliott’s.  The Canon had watched his opportunity and drawn his hostess apart.

“May I speak with you a moment,” he said, “before your other guests arrive?”

Mrs. Eliott led him to a secluded sofa.  “If you’ll sit here,” said she, “we can leave Johnson to entertain Miss Proctor.”

“I am perplexed and distressed,” said the Canon, “about our dear Mrs. Majendie.”

Mrs. Eliott’s eyes darkened with anxiety.  She clasped her hands.  “Oh why?  What is it?  Do you mean about the dear little girl?”

“I know nothing about the little girl.  But I hear very unpleasant things about her husband.”

“What things?”

The Canon’s face was reticent and grim.  He wished Mrs. Eliott to understand that he was no unscrupulous purveyor of gossip; that if he spoke, it was under constraint and severe necessity.

“I do not,” said the Canon, “usually give heed to disagreeable reports.  But I am afraid that, where there is such a dense cloud of smoke, there must be some fire.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Eliott, “perhaps they didn’t get on very well together once.  But they seem to have made it up after the sister’s death. She has been happier these last three years.  She has been a different woman.”

“The same woman, my dear lady, the same woman.  Only a better saint.  For the last three years, they say, he has been living with another woman.”

“Oh—­it’s impossible.  Impossible.  He is away a great deal—­but—­”

“He is away a great deal too often.  Running up to Scarby every week in that yacht of his.  In with the Ransomes and all that disreputable set.”