drew the heads of landlady and maid from the open door and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coach and backward along the road.  What had happened?  Nothing that concerned the lawyer.  Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from the coverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sister was not there.  No other lady got out of the coach even after his young wife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared into the house.

“How can I stand this?” thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattled and swished away towards the stable.  “I must hear, I must see, I must know what is going on down there.”

This because he heard voices in the open hall.  Crossing to his own doorway, he listened.  His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the office close by the front door.  He could hear now and then a word of what they said, but not all.  Venturing a step further, he leaned over the balustrade which extended almost up to his own door.  This was better; he could now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence.  They all referred to the sister.  “Temper—­her own way—­deaf—­would walk in all the rain and slush.—­A strange character—­you can’t imagine,” and other similar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice.  Then ejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction in the polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards the staircase, over which he was leaning.

“Show me my room,” rang up in Georgian’s bell-like tones; “then I’ll tell you what to do about her.  She isn’t easily managed.”

“But she’ll get her death!” expostulated Mrs. Deo; “to say nothing of her losing her way in this dreadful darkness.  Let me send—­”

“Not yet,” broke in his young wife’s voice, with just the hint of asperity in it.  “She must trudge out her tantrum first.  I think her idea was to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she used to pick blackberries.  You needn’t worry about her getting cold.  She’s lived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet.  But it’s different with me.  I’m all in a shiver.  Which is my room, please?”

She was now at the head of the stairs.  Mr. Ransom had closed his door, but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed by the chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caught one full glimpse of her beloved figure.  She was dressed in a long rain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite of its simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air.  A woman to draw all eyes, but such a mystery to her husband!  Such a mystery to all who knew her story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.

Events did not halt.  He heard her give this and that order, open a door and look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her side of the partition, then shut the door again and open another.