Feet Foremost

   The house-warming at Low Threshold Hall was not an event that affected many people. The local newspaper, however, had half a column about it, and one or two daily papers supplemented the usual August dearth of topics with pictures of the house. They were all taken from the same angle, and showed a long, low building in the Queen Anne style flowing away from a square tower on the left which was castellated and obviously of much earlier date, the whole structure giving somewhat the impression to a casual glance of a domesticated church, or even of a small railway train that had stopped dead on finding itself in a park. Beneath the photograph was written something like "Suffolk Manor House re-occupied after a hundred and fifty years," and, in one instance, "Inset, (L.) Mr. Charles Ampleforth, owner of Low Threshold Hall; (R.) Sir George Willings, the architect responsible for the restoration of this interesting mediaeval relic." Mr. Ampleforth's handsome, slightly Disraelian head, nearly spiked on his own flagpole, smiled congratulations at the grey hair and rounded features of Sir George Willings who, suspended like a bubble above the Queen Anne wing, discreetly smiled back.
   To judge from the photograph, time had dealt gently with Low Threshold Hall. Only a trained observer could have told how much of the original fabric had been renewed. The tower looked particularly convincing. While as for the gardens sloping down to the stream which bounded the foreground of the picture - they had that old-world air which gardens so quickly acquire. To see those lush lawns and borders as a meadow, that mellow brickwork under scaffolding, needed a strong effort of the imagination.
   But the guests assembled in Mr Ampleforth's drawing-room after dinner and listening to their host as, not for the first time, he enlarged upon the obstacles faced and overcome in the work of restoration, found it just as hard to believe that the house was old. Most of them had been taken to see it, at one time or another, in process of reconstruction; yet even within a few days of its completion, how unfinished a house looks! Its habitability seems determined in the last appreciatively from the Samarcand rugs to the pale green walls, and dwelt with pleasure on the high shallow arch, flanked by slender columns, the delicate lines of which were emphasised by the darkness of the hall behind them. It all seemed so perfect and so new; not only every sign of decay but the very sense of age had been banished. How absurd not to be able to find a single grey hair, so to speak, in a house that had stood empty for a hundred and fifty years! Her eyes, still puzzled, came to rest on the company, ranged in an irregular circle round the open fireplace.
   "What's the matter, Maggie?" said a man at her side, obviously glad to turn the conversation away from bricks and mortar. "Looking for something?"
   Mrs. Ampleforth, whose still lovely skin under the abundant white hair made her face look like a rose in snow, bent forward over the cream-coloured satin bedspread she was embroidering and smiled. "I was only thinking," said Maggie, turning to her host whose recital had paused but not died upon his lips, "how surprised the owls and bats would be if they could come in and see the change in their old home."
   "Oh, I do hope they won't," cried a high female voice from the depths of a chair whose generous proportions obscured the speaker.
   "Don't be such a baby, Eileen," said Maggie's neighbour in tones that only a husband could have used. "Wait till you see the family ghost."
   "Ronald, please! Have pity on my poor nerves!" The upper half of a tiny, childish, imploring face peered like a crescent moon over the rim of the chair.
   "If there is a ghost," said Maggie, afraid that her original remark might be construed as a criticism, "I envy him his beautiful surroundings. I would willingly take his place."
   "Hear, hear," agreed Ronald. "A very happy haunting-ground. Is there a ghost, Charles?"
   There was a pause. They all looked at their host.
   "Well," said Mr Ampleforth, who rarely spoke except after a pause and never without a slight impressiveness of manner, "there is and there isn't."
   The silence grew even more respectful.
   "The ghost of Low Threshold Hall," Mr. Ampleforth continued, "is no ordinary ghost."
   "It wouldn't be," muttered Ronald in an aside Maggie feared might be audible.
   "It is, for one thing," Mr. Ampleforth pursued, "exceedingly considerate."
   "Oh, how?" exclaimed two or three voices.
   "It only comes by invitation."
   "Can anyone invite it?"
   "Yes, anyone." qThere was nothing Mr. Ampleforth liked better than answering questions; he was evidently enjoying himself now.
   "How is the invitation delivered?" Ronald asked. "Does one telephone, or does one send a card: 'Mrs. Ampleforth requests the pleasure of Mr. Ghost's company on - well - what is tomorrow? - the eighteenth August, Moaning and Groaning and Chain Rattling. R.S.V.P.'?"
   "That would be a sad solecism," said Mr. Ampleforth. "The ghost of Low Threshold Hall is a lady."
   "Oh," cried Eileen's affected little voice. "I'm so thankful. I should be much less frightened of a female phantom."
   "She hasn't attained years of discretion," Mr. Ampleforth said. "She was only sixteen when—"
   "Then she's not 'out'?"
   "Not in the sense you mean. I hope she's not 'out' in any sense," said Mr. Ampleforth, with grim facetiousness. There was a general shudder.
   "Well, I'm glad we can't ask her to an evening party," observed Ronald. "A ghost at tea-time is much less alarming. Is she what is called a 'popular girl'?"
   "I'm afraid not."
   "Then why do people invite her?"
   "They don't realise what they're doing."
   "A kind of pig in a poke business, what? But you haven't told us yet how we're to get hold of the little lady."
   "That's quite simple," said Mr. Ampleforth readily. "She comes to the door."
   The drawing-room clock began to strike eleven, and no one spoke till it had finished.
   "She comes to the door," said Ronald with an air of deliberation, "and then - don't interrupt, Eileen, I'm in charge of the cross-examination - she - she hangs about—"
   "She waits to be asked inside."
   "I suppose there is a time-honoured formula of invitation: 'Sweet Ermyntrude, in the name of the master of the house I bid thee welcome to Low Threshold Hall. There's no step, so you can walk straight in.' Charles, much as I admire your house, I do think it's incomplete without a doorstep. A ghost could just sail in."
   "There you make a mistake," said Mr. Ampleforth impressively. "Our ghost cannot enter the house unless she is lifted across the threshold."
   "Like a bride," exclaimed Magdalen.
   "Yes," said Mr. Ampleforth. "Because she came as a bride." He looked round at his guests with an enigmatic smile.
   They did not disappoint him. "Now, Charlie, don't be so mysterious! Do tell us! Tell us the whole story."
   Mr. Ampleforth settled himself into his chair. "There's very little to tell," he said, with the reassuring manner of someone who intends to tell a great deal, "but this is the tale. In the time of the Wars of the Roses the owner of Low Threshold Hall (I need not tell you his name was not Ampleforth) married en troisiemes noces the daughter of a neighbouring baron much less powerful than he. Lady Elinor Stortford was sixteen when she came and she did not live to see her seventeenth birthday. Her husband was a bad hat (I'm sorry to have to say so of a predecessor of mine), a very bad hat. He ill-treated her, drove her mad with terror, and finally killed her."
   The narrator paused dramatically but the guests felt slightly disappointed. They had heard so many stories of that kind.
   "Poor thing," said Magdalen, feeling that some comment was necessary, however flat. "So now she haunts the place. I suppose it's the nature of ghosts to linger where they've suffered, but it seems illogical to me. I should want to go somewhere else."
   "The Lady Elinor would agree with you. The first thing she does when she gets into the house is make plans for getting out. Her visits, as far as I can gather, have generally been brief."
   "Then why does she come?" asked Eileen.
   "She comes for vengeance," Mr. Ampleforth's voice dropped at the word. "And apparently she gets it. Within a short time of her appearance, someone in the house always dies."
   "Nasty spiteful little girl," said Ronald, concealing a yawn. "Then how long is she in residence?"
   "Until her object is accomplished."
   "Does she make a dramatic departure - in a thunder-storm or something?"
   "No, she is just carried out." "Who carries her this time?"
   "The undertaker's men. She goes out with the corpse. Though some say—"
   "Oh, Charlie, do stop!" Mrs. Ampleforth interrupted, bending down to gather up the corners of her bedspread. "Eileen will never sleep. Let's go to bed."
   "No! No!" shouted Ronald. "He can't leave off like that. I must hear the rest. My flesh was just beginning to creep."
   Mr. Ampleforth looked at his wife.
   "I've had my orders."
   "Well, well," said Ronald, resigned. "Anyhow, remember what I said. A decent fall of rain, and you'll have a foot of water under the tower there, unless you put in a doorstep."
   Mr. Ampleforth looked grave. "Oh no, I couldn't do that. That would be to invite er - er - trouble. The absence of a step was a precaution.
   That's how the house got its name."
   "A precaution against what?"
   "Against Lady Elinor."
   "But how? I should have thought a draw-bridge would have been more effective."
   "Lord Deadham's immediate heirs thought the same. According to the story they put every material obstacle they could to bar the lady's path. You can still see in the tower the grooves which contained the portcullis. And there was a flight of stairs so steep and dangerous they couldn't be used without risk to life and limb. But that only made it easier for Lady Elinor."
   "How did it?"
   "Why, don't you see, everyone who came to the house, friends and strangers alike, had to be helped over the threshold! There was no way of distinguishing between them. At last when so many members of the family had been killed off that it was threatened with extinction, someone conceived a brilliant idea. Can you guess what it was, Maggie?"
   "They removed all the barriers and levelled the threshold, so that any stranger who came to the door and asked to be helped into the house was refused admittance."
   "Exactly. And the plan seems to have worked remarkably well."
   "But the family did die out in the end," observed Maggie.
   "Yes," said Mr. Ampleforth, "soon after the middle of the eighteenth century. The best human plans are fallible, and Lady Elinor was very persistent."
   He held the company with his glittering raconteur's eye.
   But Mrs. Ampleforth was standing up. "Now, now," she said, "I gave you twenty minutes" grace. It will soon be midnight. Come along, Maggie, you must be tired after your journey. Let me light you a candle." She took the girl's arm and piloted her into the comparative darkness of the hall. "I think they must be on this table," she said, her fingers groping; "I don't know the house myself yet. We ought to have had a light put here. But it's one of Charlie's little economies to have as few lights as possible. I'll tell him about it. But it takes so long to get anything done in this out-of-the-way spot. My dear, nearly three miles to the nearest clergyman, four to the nearest doctor! Ah, here we are, I'll light some for the others. Charlie is still holding forth about Lady Elinor. You didn't mind that long recital?" she added, as, accompanied by their shadows, they walked up the stairs. "Char-he does so love an audience. And you don't feel uncomfortable or anything? I am always so sorry for Lady Elinor, poor soul, if she ever existed. Oh, and I wanted to say we were so disappointed about Antony. I feel we got you down to-day on false pretences. Something at the office kept him. But he's coming to-morrow. When is the wedding to be, dearest?"
   "In the middle of September."
   "Quite soon now. I can't tell you how excited I am about it. I think he's such a dear. You both are. Now which is your way, left, right, or middle? I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten."
   Maggie considered. "I remember; it's to the left."
   "In that black abyss? Oh, darling, I forgot; do you feel equal to going on the picnic to-morrow? We shan't get back till five. It'll be a long day: I'll stay at home with you if you like - I'm tired of ruins."
   "I'd love to go."
   "Good-night, then."
   "Good-night."
   In the space of ten minutes the two men, left to themselves, had succeeded in transforming the elegant Queen Anne drawing-room into something that looked and smelt like a bar-parlour.
   "Well," observed Ronald who, more than his host, had been responsible for the room's deterioration, "time to turn in. I have a rendezvous with Lady Elinor. By the way, Charles," he went on, "have you given the servants instructions in anti-Elinor technique - told them only to admit visitors who can enter the house under their own steam, so to speak?"
   "Mildred thought it wisest, and I agree with her," said Mr. Ampleforth, "to tell the servants nothing at all. It might unsettle them, and we shall have hard work to keep them as it is."
   "Perhaps you're right," said Ronald. "Anyhow it's no part of their duty to show the poor lady out. Charles, what were you going to say that wasn't fit for ears polite when Mildred stopped you?"
   Mr. Ampleforth reflected. "I wasn't aware—"
   "Oh, yes, she nipped your smoking-room story in the bud. I asked 'Who carries Lady Elinor out?' and you said 'The undertaker's men; she goes out with the corpse,' and you were going to say something else when you were called to order."
   "Oh, I remember," said Mr. Ampleforth. 'It was such a small point, I couldn't imagine why Mildred objected. According to one story, she doesn't go out with the corpse, she goes out in it."
   Ronald pondered. "Don't see much difference, do you?"
   "I can't honestly say I do."
   "Women are odd creatures," Ronald said. "So long."
   The cat stood by the library door, miaowing. Its intention was perfectly plain. First it had wanted to go out; then it strolled up and down outside the window, demanding to come in; now it wanted to go out again. For the third time in half an hour Antony Fairfield rose from his comfortable chair to do its bidding. He opened the door gently - all his movements were gentle; but the cat scuttled ignominiously out, as though he had kicked it. Antony looked round. How could he defend himself from disturbance without curtailing the cat's liberty of movement? He might leave the window and the door open, to give the animal freedom of exit and entrance; though he hated sitting in a room with the door open, he was prepared to make the sacrifice. But he couldn't leave the window open because the rain would come in and spoil Mrs. Ampleforth's beautiful silk cushions. Heavens, how it rained! Too bad for the farmers, thought Antony, whose mind was always busying itself with other people's misfortunes. The crops had been looking so well as he drove in the sunshine from the station, and now this sudden storm would beat everything down. He arranged his chair so that he could see the window and not keep the cat waiting if she felt like paying him another visit. The pattering of the rain soothed him. Half an hour and they would be back - Maggie would be back. He tried to visualise their faces, all so well known to him: but the experiment was not successful. Maggie's image kept ousting the others; it even appeared, somewhat grotesquely, on the top of Ronald's well-tailored shoulders. They mustn't find me asleep, thought Antony; I should look too middle-aged. So he picked up the newspaper from the floor and turned to the cross-word Puzzle. "Nine points of the law" in nine - ten letters. That was a very easy one: "Possession." Possession, thought Antony; I must put that down. But as he had no pencil and was too sleepy to get one, he repeated the word over and over again: Possession, Possession. It worked like a charm. He fell asleep and dreamed.
   In his dream he was still in the library, but it was night and somehow his chair had got turned around so that he no longer faced the window, but he knew that the cat was there, asking to come in; only someone - Maggie - was trying to persuade him not to let it in. "It's not a cat at all," she kept saying; "it's a Possession. I can see its nine points, and they're very sharp." But he knew that she was mistaken, and really meant nine lives, which all cats have: so he thrust her aside and ran to the window and opened it. It was too dark to see so he put out his hand where he thought the cat's body would be, expecting to feel the warm fur; but what met his hand was not warm, nor was it fur . . . He woke with a start to see the butler standing in front of him. The room was flooded with sunshine.
   "Oh, Rundle," he cried, "I was asleep. Are they back?"
   The butler smiled.
   "No, sir, but I expect them every minute now." "But you wanted me?"
   "Well, sir, there's a young lady called, and I said the master was out, but she said could she speak to the gentleman in the library? She must have seen you, sir, as she passed the window."
   "How very odd. Does she know me?"
   "That was what she said, sir. She talks rather funny."
   "All right, I'll come."
   Antony followed the butler down the long corridor. When they reached the tower their footsteps rang on the paved floor. A considerable pool of water, the result of the recent heavy shower, had formed on the flagstones near the doorway. The door stood open, letting in a flood of light; but of the caller there was no sign.
   "She was here a moment ago," the butler said.
   "Ah, I see her," cried Antony. "At least, isn't that her reflected in the water? She must be leaning against the door-post."
   "That's right," said Rundle. "Mind the puddle, sir. Let me give you a hand. I'll have this all cleared up before they come back."

   Five minutes later two cars, closely following each other, pulled up at the door, and the picnic party tumbled out.
   "Dear me, how wet!" cried Mrs. Ampleforth, standing in the doorway. "What has happened, Rundle? Has there been a flood?"
   "It was much worse before you arrived, madam," said the butler, disappointed that his exertions with mop, floorcloth, scrubbing-brush, and pail were being so scantily recognised. "You could have sailed a boat on it. Mr. Antony he—"
   "Oh, has he arrived? Antony's here, isn't that splendid?"
   "Antony!" they all shouted. "Come out! Come down! Where are you?"
   "I bet he's asleep, the lazy devil," remarked Ronald.
   "No, sir," said the butler, at last able to make himself heard. "Mr. Antony's in the drawing-room with a lady."
   Mrs. Ampleforth's voice broke the silence that succeeded this announcement.
   "With a lady, Rundle? Are you sure?"
   "Well, madam, she's hardly more than a girl."
   "I always thought Antony was that sort of man," observed Ronald. "Maggie, you'd better—"
   "It's too odd," interposed Mrs. Ampleforth hastily, 'Who in the world can she be?"
   "I don't see there's anything odd in someone calling on us," said Mr. Ampleforth. "What's her name, Rundle?"
   "She didn't give a name, sir."
   "That is rather extraordinary. Antony is so impulsive and kindhearted. I hope - ah, here he is."
   Antony came towards them along the passage, smiling and waving his hands. When the welcoming and hand-shaking were over:
   "We were told you had a visitor," said Mrs. Ampleforth.
   Yes," said Ronald. "I'm afraid we arrived at the wrong moment."
   Antony laughed and then looked puzzled. "Believe me, you didn't," he said. "You almost saved my life. She speaks such a queer dialect when she speaks at all, and I had reached the end of my small talk. But she's rather interesting. Do come along and see her: I left her in the library." They followed Antony down the passage. When they reached the door he said to Mrs. Ampleforth: "Shall I go in first? She may be shy at meeting so many people."
   He went in. A moment later they heard his voice raised in excitement.
   "Mildred! I can't find her! She's gone!"

   Tea had been cleared away, but Antony's strange visitor was still the topic of conversation. "I can't understand it," he was saying, not for the first time. "The windows were shut, and if she'd gone by the door we must have seen her."
   "Now, Antony," said Ronald severely, "let's hear the whole story again. Remember, you are accused of smuggling into the house a female of doubtful reputation. Furthermore the prosecution alleges that when you heard us call (we were shouting ourselves hoarse, but he didn't come at once, you remember) you popped her out of that window and came out to meet us, smiling sheepishly, and feebly gesticulating. What do you say?"
   "I've told you everything," said Antony. "I went to the door and found her leaning against the stonework. Her eyes were shut. She didn't move and I thought she must be ill. So I said, 'Is anything the matter?' and she looked up and said, 'My leg hurts.' Then I saw by the way she was standing that her hip must have been broken once and never properly set. I asked her where she lived, and she didn't seem to understand me; so I changed the form of the question, as one does on the telephone, and asked where she came from, and she said, 'A little further down,' meaning down the hill, I suppose."
   "Probably from one of the men's cottages," said Mr. Ampleforth.
   "I asked if it was far, and she said 'No', which was obvious, otherwise her clothes would have been wet and they weren't, only a little muddy. She even had some mud on her mediaeval bridesmaid's head-dress (I can't describe her clothes again, Mildred; you know how bad I am at that). So I asked if she'd had a fall, and she said, 'No, she got dirty coming up,' or so I understood her. It wasn't easy to understand her; I suppose she talked the dialect of these parts. I concluded (you all say you would have known long before) that she was a little mad, but I didn't like to leave her looking so rotten, so I said, 'Won't you come in and rest a minute?' Then I wished I hadn't".
   "Because she looked so pleased?"
   "Oh, much more than pleased. And she said, T hope you won't live to regret it,' rather as though she hoped I should. And then I only meant just to take her hand, because of the water, you know, and she was lame—"
   "And instead she flung herself into the poor fellow's arms—"
   "Well, it amounted to that. I had no option! So I carried her across and put her down and she followed me here, walking better than I expected. A minute later you arrived. I asked her to wait and she didn't. That's all."
   "I should like to have seen Antony doing the St. Christopher act!" said Ronald. "Was she heavy, old boy?"
   Antony shifted in his chair. "Oh, no," he said, "not at all. Not at all heavy." Unconsciously he stretched his arms out in front of him, as though testing an imaginary weight. "I see my hands are grubby," he said with an expression of distaste. "I must go and wash them. I won't be a moment, Maggie."

   That night, after dinner, there was some animated conversation in the servants' hall.
   "Did you hear any more, Mr. Rundle?" asked a housemaid of the butler, who had returned from performing his final office at the dinner-table.
   "I did," said Rundle, "but I don't know that I ought to tell you."
   "It won't make an difference, Mr. Rundle, whether you do or don't. I'm going to give in my notice to-morrow. I won't stay in a haunted house. We've been lured here. We ought to have been warned."
   "They certainly meant to keep it from us," said Rundle. "I myself had put two and two together after seeing Lady Elinor; what Wilkins said when he came in for his tea only confirmed my suspicions. No gardener can ever keep a still tongue in his head. It's a pity."
   "Wouldn't you have told us yourself, Mr. Rundle?" asked the cook.
   "I should have used my discretion," the butler replied. "When I informed Mr. Ampleforth that I was no longer in ignorance, he said, 'I rely on you, Rundle, not to say anything which might alarm the staff.'"
   "Mean, I call it," exclaimed the kitchen-maid indignantly. "They want to have all the fun and leave us to die like rats in a trap."
   Rundle ignored the interruption.
   "I told Mr. Ampleforth that Wilkins had been tale-bearing and would he excuse it in an outdoor servant, but unfortunately we were now in possession of the facts."
   "That's why they talked about it at dinner," said the maid who helped Rundle to wait.
   "They didn't really throw the mask off till after you'd gone, Lizzie," said the butler. "Then I began to take part in the conversation."
   He paused for a moment.
   "Mr. Ampleforth asked me whether anything was missing from the house, and I was able to reply, 'No, everything was in order.'"
   "What else did you say?" inquired the cook.
   "I made the remark that the library window wasn't fastened, as they thought, but only closed, and Mrs. Turnbull laughed and said, 'Perhaps it's only a thief, after all,' but the others didn't think she could have got through the window, unless her lameness was all put on. And then I told them what the police had said about looking out for a suspicious character."
   "Did they seem frightened?" asked the cook.
   "Not noticeably," replied the butler. "Mrs. Turnbull said she hoped the gentleman wouldn't stay long over their port. Mr. Ampleforth said, 'No, they had had a full day, and would be glad to go to bed.' Mrs. Ampleforth asked Miss Winthrop if she wanted to change her bedroom, but she said she didn't. Then Mr. Fairfield asked if he could have some iodine for his hand, and Miss Winthrop said she would fetch some. She wanted to bring it after dinner, but he said, 'Oh, to-morrow morning will do, darling.' He seemed rather quiet." "What's he done to his hand?"
   "I saw the mark when he took his coffee. It was like a burn." "They didn't say they were going to shut the house up, or anything?"
   "Oh, Lord, no. There's going to be a party next week. They'll all have to stay for that."
   "I never knew such people," said the kitchen-maid. "They'd rather die, and us too, than miss their pleasures. I wouldn't stay another day if I wasn't forced. When you think she may be here in this very room, listening to us!" She shuddered.
   "Don't you worry, my girl," said Rundle, rising from his chair with a gesture of dismissal. "She won't waste her time listening to you."
   "We really might be described as a set of crocks," said Mr. Ampleforth to Maggie after luncheon the following day. "You, poor dear, with your headache; Eileen with her nerves; I with -well - a touch of rheumatism; Antony with his bad arm." Maggie looked troubled.
   "My headache is nothing, but I'm afraid Antony isn't very well."
   "He's gone to lie down, hasn't he?"
   "Yes."
   "The best thing. I telephoned for the doctor to come this evening. He can have a look at all of us, ha! ha! Meanwhile, where will you spend the afternoon? I think the library's the coolest place on a stuffy day like this; and I want you to see my collection of books about Low Threshold - my Thresholdiana, I call them."
   Maggie followed him into the library.
   "Here they are. Most of them are nineteenth-century books, publications of the Society of Antiquaries, and so on; but some are older. I got a little man in Charing Cross Road to hunt them out for me; I haven't had time to read them all myself."
   Maggie took a book at random from the shelves.
   "Now I'll leave you," said her host. "And later in the afternoon I know that Eileen would appreciate a little visit. Ronald says it's nothing, just a little nervous upset, stomach trouble. Between ourselves, I fear Lady Elinor is to blame."
   Maggie opened the book. It was called An Enquiry into the Recent Tragicall Happenings at Low Threshold Hall in the County of Suffolk, with some Animadversions on the Barbarous Customs of our Ancestors. It opened with a rather tedious account of the semi-mythical origins of the Deadham family. Maggie longed to skip this, but she might have to discuss the book with Mr. Ampleforth, so she ploughed on. Her persistence was rewarded by a highly coloured picture of Lady Elinor's husband and an account of the cruelties he practised on her. The story would have been too painful to read had not the author (Maggie felt) so obviously drawn upon a very vivid imagination. But suddenly her eyes narrowed. What was this? "Once in a Drunken Fitt he so mishandled her that her thigh was broken near the hip, and her screames were so loud they were heard by the servants through three closed doores; and yet he would not summon a Chirurgeon, for (quoth he)" - Lord Deadham's reason was coarse in the extreme; Maggie hastened on.
   "And in consequence of these Barbarities her nature which was soft and yielding at the first was greatly changed, and those who sawe her now (but Pitie seal'd their lips) would have said she had a Bad Hearte."
   No wonder, thought Maggie, reading with a new and painful interest how the murdered woman avenged herself on various descendants, direct and collateral, of her persecutor. "And it hath been generally supposed by the vulgar that her vengeance was directed only against members of that family from which she had taken so many Causeless Hurtes; and the depraved, defective, counterfeit records of those times have lent colour to this Opinion. Whereas the truth is as I now state it, having had access to those death-bed and testamentary depositions which, preserved in ink however faint, do greater service to verity than the relations of Pot-House Historians, enlarged by Memory and confused by Ale. Yet it is on such Testimonies that rash and sceptical Heads rely when they assert that the Lady Elinor had no hand in the late Horrid Occurrence at Low Threshold Hall, which I shall presently describe, thinking that a meer visitor and no blood relation could not be the object of her vengeance, notwithstanding the evidence of two serving-maids, one at the door and one craning her neck from an upper casement, who saw him beare her in: The truth being that she maketh no distinction between persons, but whoso admits her, on him doth her vengeance fall. Seven times she hath brought death to Low Threshold Hall; Three, it is true, being members of the family, but the remaining four indifferent Persons and not connected with them, having in common only this piece of folie, that they, likewise, let her in. And in each case she hath used the same manner of attack, as those who have beheld her first a room's length, then no further than a Lovers Embrace, from her victim have in articulo mortis delivered. And the moment when she is no longer seen, which to the watchers seems the Clarion and Reveille of their hopes, is in reality the knell; for she hath not withdrawn further, but approached nearer, she hath not gone out but entered in; and from her dreadful Citadel within the body rejoices, doubtless, to see the tears and hear the groanes, of those who with Comfortable Faces (albeit with sinking Hearts), would soothe the passage of the parting Soul. Their Lacrimatory Effusions are balm to her wicked Minde; the sad gale and ventilation of their sighs a pleasing Zephyre to her vindictive spirit."
   Maggie put down the book for a moment and stared in front of her. Then she began again to read.
   "Once only hath she been cheated of her Prey, and it happened thus. His Bodie was already swollen with the malignant Humours she had stirred up in him and his life despaired of when a kitchen-wench was taken with an Imposthume that bled inwardly. She being of small account and but lately arrived they did only lay her the Strawe, charging the Physician (and he nothing loth, expecting no Glory or Profit from attendance on such a Wretched creature) not to Divide his Efforts but use all his skill to save their cousin (afterwards the twelfth Lord). Notwithstanding which precaution he did hourly get worse until sodainely a change came and he began to amend. Whereat was such rejoicing (including an Ox roasted whole) that the night was spent before they heard the serving-maid was dead. In their Revels they gave small heed to this Event, not realising that they owed His life to Hers; for a fellow-servant who tended the maid (out of charity) declared that her death and the cousin's recovery followed as quickly as a clock striking Two. And the Physician said it was well, for she would have died in any case.
   "Whereby we must conclude that the Lady Elinor, like other Apparitions, is subject to certain Lawes. One, to abandon her Victim and seeking another tenement to transfer her vengeance, should its path be crossed by a Body yet nearer Dissolution: and another is, she cannot possess or haunt the corpse after it has received Christian Buriall. As witness the fact that the day after the Interment of the tenth Lord she again appeared at the Doore and being recognised by her inability to make the Transit was turned away and pelted. And another thing I myself believe but have no proof of is: That her power is circumscribed by the wall of the House; those victims of her Malignitie could have been saved but for the dreadful swiftnesse of the disease and the doctors unwillingness to move a Sicke man; otherwise how could the Termes of her Curse that she pronounced be fulfilled: 'They shall be carried out Feet Foremost'?"
   Maggie read no more. She walked out of the library with the book under her arm.,Before going to see how Antony was she would put it in her bedroom where no one could find it. Troubled and oppressed she paused at the head of the stairs. Her way lay straight ahead, but her glance automatically travelled to the right where, at the far end of the passage, Antony's bedroom lay. She looked again; the door, which she could only just see, was shut now. But she could swear it had closed upon a woman. There was nothing odd in that; Mildred might have gone in, or Muriel, or a servant. But all the same she could not rest. Hurriedly she changed her dress and went to Antony s room. Pausing at the door she listened and distinctly heard his voice, speaking rapidly and in a low tone; but no one seemed to reply- She got no answer to her knock, so, mustering her courage, she walked in.
   The blind was down and the room half dark, and the talking continued, which increased her uneasiness. Then, as her eyes got used to the darkness, she realised, with a sense of relief, that he was talking in his sleep. She pulled up the blind a little, so that she might see his hand. The brown mark had spread, she thought, and looked rather puffy, as though coffee had been injected under the skin. She felt concerned for him. He would never have gone properly to bed like that, in his pyjamas, if he hadn't felt ill, and he tossed about restlessly. Maggie bent over him. Perhaps he had been eating a biscuit: there was some gritty stuff on the pillow. She tried to scoop it up but it eluded her. She could make no sense of his mutterings, but the word "light" came in a good deal. Perhaps he was only half asleep and wanted the blind down. At last her ears caught the sentence that was running on his lips: "She was so light." Light? A light woman? Browning. The words conveyed nothing to her, and not wishing to wake him she tiptoed from the room.
   "The doctor doesn't seem to think seriously of any of us, Maggie, you'll be glad to hear," said Mr. Ampleforth, coming into the drawing-room about six o'clock. "Eileen's coming down to dinner. I am to drink less port I didn't need a doctor, alas! to tell me that. Antony's the only casualty: he's got a slight temperature, and had better stay where he is until to-morrow. The doctor thinks it is one of those damnable horse-flies: his arm is a bit swollen, that's all."
   "Has he gone?" asked Maggie quickly.
   "Who, Antony?"
   "No, no, the doctor." q"Oh, I'd forgotten your poor head. No, you'll just catch him. His car's on the terrace."
   The doctor, a kindly, harassed middle-aged man, listened patiently to Maggie's questions.
   "The brown mark? Oh, that's partly the inflammation, partly the iodine - he's been applying it pretty liberally, you know, amateur physicians are all alike; feel they can't have too much of a good thing."
   "You don't think the water here's responsible? I wondered if he ought to go away."
   "The water? Oh no. No, it's a bite all right, though I confess I can't see the place where the devil got his beak in. I'll come tomorrow, if you like, but there's really no need."
   The next morning, returning from his bath, Ronald marched into Antony's room. The blind went up with a whizz and a smack, and Antony opened his eyes.
   "Good morning, old man," said Ronald cheerfully. "Thought I'd look in and see you. How goes the blood-poisoning? Better?"
   Antony drew up his sleeve and hastily replaced it. The arm beneath was chocolate-coloured to the elbow.
   "I feel pretty rotten," he said.
   "I say, that's bad luck. What's this?" added Ronald, coming nearer. "Have you been sleeping in both beds?"
   "Not to my knowledge," murmured Antony.
   "You have, though," said Ronald. "If this bed hasn't been slept in, it's been slept on, or lain on. That I can swear. Only a head, my boy, could have put that dent in the pillow, and only a pair of muddy - hullo! The pillow's got it, too."
   "Got what?" asked Antony drowsily.
   "Well, if you ask me, it's common garden mould."
   "I'm not surprised. I feel pretty mouldy, too."
   "Well, Antony; to save your good name with the servants, I'll remove the traces."
   With characteristic vigour Ronald swept and smoothed the bed.
   "Now you'll be able to look Rundle in the face."
   There was a knock on the door.
   "If this is Maggie," said Ronald, "I'm going."
   It was, and he suited the action to the word.
   "You needn't trouble to tell me, dearest," she said, "that you are feeling much better, because I can see that you aren't."
   Antony moved his head uneasily on the pillow.
   "I don't feel very flourishing, to tell you the honest truth."
   "Listen" - Maggie tried to make her voice sound casual - "I don't believe this is a very healthy place. Don't laugh, Antony; we're all of us more or less under the weather. I think you ought to go away."
   "My dear, don't be hysterical. One often feels rotten when one wakes up. I shall be all right in a day or two."
   "Of course you will. But all the same if you were in Sussex Square you could call in Fosbrook - and, well, I should be more comfortable."
   "But you'd be here!"
   "I could stay at Pamela's."
   "But, darling, that would break up the party. I couldn't do it; and it wouldn't be fair to Mildred."
   "My angel, you're no good to the party, lying here in bed. And as long as you're here, let me warn you they won't see much of me."
   A look of irritation Maggie had never noticed before came into his face as he said, almost spitefully:
   "Supposing the doctor won't allow you to come in? It may be catching, you know."
   Maggie concealed the hurt she felt.
   "All the more reason for you to be out of the house." He pulled up the bedclothes with a gesture of annoyance and turned away.
   "Oh, Maggie, don't keep nagging at me. You ought to be called Naggie, not Maggie."
   This was an allusion to an incident in Maggie's childhood. Her too great solicitude for a younger brother's safety had provoked the gibe. It had always wounded her, but never so much as coming from Antony's lips. She rose to go.
   "Do put the bed straight," said Antony, still with face averted. "Otherwise they'll think you've been sleeping here."
   "What?"
   "Well, Ronald said something about it."
   Maggie closed the door softly behind her. Antony was ill, of course, she must remember that. But he had been ill before, and was always an angelic patient. She went down to breakfast feeling miserable.

   After breakfast, at which everyone else had been unusually cheerful, she thought of a plan. It did not prove so easy of execution as she hoped.
   "But, dearest Maggie," said Mildred, "the village is nearly three miles away. And there's nothing to see there."
   "I love country post-offices," said Maggie; "they always have such amusing things."
   "There is a post-office," admitted Mildred. "But are you sure it isn't something we could do from here? Telephone, telegraph?"
   "Perhaps there'd be a picture-postcard of the house," said Maggie feebly.
   "Oh, but Charlie had such nice ones," Mildred protested. "He's so house-proud, you could trust him for that. Don't leave us for two hours just to get postcards. We shall miss you so much, and think of poor Antony left alone all the morning."
   Maggie had been thinking of him.
   "He'll get on all right without me," she said lightly.
   "Well, wait till the afternoon when the chauffeur or Ronald can run you over in a car. He and Charlie have gone into Norwich and won't be back till lunch."
   "I think I'll walk," said Maggie. "It'll do me good."
   "I managed that very clumsily," she thought, "so how shall I persuade Antony to tell me the address of his firm?"
   To her surprise his room was empty. He must have gone away in the middle of writing a letter, for there were sheets lying about on the writing-table and, what luck! an envelope addressed to Higgins & Stukeley, 312 Paternoster Row. A glance was all she really needed to memorise the address; but her eyes wandered to the litter on the table. What a mess! There were several pages of notepaper covered with figures. Antony had been making calculations and, as his habit was, decorating them with marginal illustrations. He was good at drawing faces, and he had a gift for catching a likeness. Maggie had often seen, and been gratified to see, slips of paper embellished with portraits of herself- full-face, side-face, three-quarter-face. But this face that looked out from among the figures and seemed to avoid her glance, was not hers. It was the face of a woman she had never seen before but whom she felt she would recognise anywhere, so consistent and vivid were the likeness. Scattered among the loose leaves were the contents of Antony's pocket-book. She knew he always carried her photograph. Where was it? Seized by an impulse, she began to rummage among the papers. Ah, here it was. But it was no longer hers! With a few strokes Antony had transformed her oval face, unlined and soft of feature, into a totally different one, a pinched face with high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and bright hard eyes, from whose corners a sheaf of fine wrinkles spread like a fan: a face with which she was already too familiar.
   Unable to look at it she turned away and saw Antony standing behind her. He seemed to have come from the bath for he carried a towel and was wearing his dressing-gown.
   "Well," he said. "Do you think it's an improvement?"
   She could not answer him, but walked over to the washstand and took up the thermometer that was lying on it.
   "Ought you to be walking about like that," she said at last, "with a temperature of a hundred?"
   "Perhaps not," he replied, making two or three goat-like skips towards the bed. "But I feel rather full of beans this morning."
   Maggie edged away from his smile towards the door.
   "There isn't anything I can do for you?"
   "Not to-day, my darling."
   The term of endearment struck her like a blow.

   Maggie sent off her telegram and turned into the village street. The fact of being able to do something had relieved her mind: already in imagination she saw Antony being packed into the Ampleforths' Daimler with rugs and hotwater bottles, and herself, perhaps, seated by the driver. They were endlessly kind, and would make no bones about motoring him to London. But though her spirits were rising her body felt tired; the day was sultry, and she had hurried. Another bad night like last night, she thought, and I shall be a wreck. There was a chemist's shop over me way, and she walked in.
   ''Can I have some sal volatile?"
   "Certainly, madam."
   She drank it and felt better.
   "Oh, and have you anything in the way of a sleeping draught?"
   "We have some allodanol tablets, madam."
   "I'll take them."
   "Have you a doctor's prescription?"
   "No."
   "Then I'm afraid you'll have to sign the poison book. Just a matter of form."
   Maggie recorded her name, idly wondering what J. Bates, her predecessor on the list, meant to do with his cyanide of potassium.

   "We must try not to worry," said Mrs. Ampleforth, handing Maggie her tea, 'but I must say I'm glad the doctor has come. It relieves one of responsibility, doesn't it? Not that I feel disturbed about Antony - he was quite bright when I went to see him just before lunch. And he's been sleeping since. But I quite see what Maggie means. He doesn't seem himself. Perhaps it would be a good plan, as she suggests, to send him to London. He would have better advice there."
   Rundle came in.
   "A telegram for Mr. Fairfield, madam."
   "It's been telephoned: "Your presence urgently required Tuesday morning - Higgins & Stukeley." Tuesday, that's tomorrow. Everything seems to point to his going, doesn't it, Charles?"
   Maggie was delighted, but a little surprised, that Mrs. Ampleforth had fallen in so quickly with the plan of sending Antony home.
   "Could he go to-day?" she asked.
   "To-morrow would be too late, wouldn't it?" said Mr. Ampleforth drily. "The car's at his disposal: he can go whenever he likes."
   Through her relief Maggie felt a little stab of pain that they were both so ready to see the last of Antony. He was generally such a popular guest.
   "I could go with him," she said.
   Instantly they were up in arms, Ronald the most vehement of all "I'm sure Antony wouldn't want you to. You know what I mean, Maggie, it's such a long drive, in a closed car on a stuffy evening. Charlie says he'll send a man, if necessary."
   Mr. Ampleforth nodded.
   "But if he were ill!" cried Maggie.
   The entrance of the doctor cut her short. He looked rather grave.
   "I wish I could say I was satisfied with Mr. Fairfield's progress," he said, "but I can't. The inflammation has spread up the arm as far as the shoulder, and there's some fever. His manner is odd, too, excitable and apathetic by turns." He paused. "I should like a second opinion."
   Mr. Ampleforth glanced at his wife.
   "In that case wouldn't it be better to send him to London? As a matter of fact, his firm has telegraphed for him. He could go quite comfortably in the car."
   The doctor answered immediately:
   "I wouldn't advise such a course. I think it would be most unwise to move him. His firm - you must excuse me - will have to do without him for a day or two."
   "Perhaps," suggested Maggie trembling, "it's a matter that could be arranged at his house. They could send over someone from the office. I know they make a fuss about having him on the spot," she concluded lamely.
   "Or doctor," said Mr. Ampleforth, "could you do us a very great kindness and go with him? We could telephone to his doctor to meet you, and the car would get you home by midnight."
   The doctor squared his shoulders: he was clearly one of those men whose resolution stiffens under opposition.
   "I consider it would be the height of folly," he said, "to move him out of the house. I dare not do it on my responsibility. I will get a colleague over from Ipswich to-morrow morning. In the meantime, with your permission, I will arrange for a trained nurse to be sent to-night."
   Amid a subdued murmur of final instructions, the doctor left.
   As Maggie, rather late, was walking upstairs to dress for dinner she met Rundle. He looked anxious.
   "Excuse me, miss," he said, "but have you seen Mr. Fairfield. I've asked everyone else, and they haven't. I took him up his supper half an hour ago, and he wasn't in his room. He'd got his dress clothes out, but they were all on the bed except his stiff shirt."
   "Have you been to look since?" asked Maggie.
   "No, miss."
   "I'll go and see."
   She tiptoed along the passage to Antony's door. A medley of sounds, footsteps, drawers being opened and shut, met her ears.
   She walked back to Rundle. "He's in there all right," she said. "Now I must make haste and dress."
   A few minutes later a bell rang in the kitchen.
   "Who's that?"
   "Miss Winthrop's room," said the cook. "Hurry up, Lettice, or you'll have Rundle on your track - he'll be back in a minute."
   "I don't want to go," said Lettice. "I tell you I feel that nervous—"
   "Nonsense, child," said the cook. "Run along with you."
   No sooner had the maid gone than Rundle appeared.
   "I've had a bit of trouble with Master Antony," he said. "He's got it into his head that he wants to come down to dinner. 'Rundle,' he said to me, confidentially, 'do you think it would matter us being seven? I want them to meet my new friend.' 'What friend, Mr. Fairfield?' I said. 'Oh," he said, 'haven't you seen her? She's always about with me now.' Poor chap, he used to be the pick of the' bunch, and now I'm afraid he's going potty."
   "Do you think he'll really come down to dinner?" asked the cook, but before Rundle could answer Lettice rushed into the room.
   "Oh," she cried, "I knew it would be something horrid! I knew it would be! And now she wants a floor cloth and a pail! She says they mustn't know anything about it! But I won't go again - I won't bring it down, I won't even touch it!"
   "What won't you touch?"
   "The waste-paper basket."
   "Why, what's the matter with it?"
   "It's . . . it's all bloody!"
   When the word was out she grew calmer, and even seemed anxious to relate her experience.
   "I went upstairs directly she rang" ("That's an untruth to start with," said the cook) "and she opened the door a little way and said, 'Oh, Lettice, I've been so scared!' And I said, 'What's the matter, miss?' And she said, 'There's a cat in here.' Well, I didn't think that was much to be frightened of, so I said, 'Shall I come in and catch him, miss?' and she said (deceitful-like, as it turned out), 'I should be so grateful.' Then I went in but I couldn't see the cat anywhere, so I said, 'Where is he?' At which she pointed to the waste-paper basket away by the dressing-table, and said, 'In that waste-paper basket.' I said, 'Why, that makes it easier, miss, if he'll stay there.' She said, 'Oh, he'll stay there all right.' Of course I took her meaning in a moment, because I know cats do choose queer, out-of-the-way places to die in, so I said, 'You mean the poor creature's dead, miss?' and I was just going across to get him because ordinarily I don't mind the body of an animal when she said (I will do her that justice), 'Stop a minute, Lettice, he isn't dead; he's been murdered.' I saw she was all trembling, and that made me tremble, too. And when I looked in the basket -well—"
   She paused, partly perhaps to enjoy the dramatic effect of her announcement. "Well, if wasn't our Thomas! Only you couldn't have recognised him, poor beast, his head was bashed in that cruel."
   "Thomas!" said the cook. "Why he was here only an hour ago."
   "That's what I said to Miss Winthrop. 'Why, he was in the kitchen only an hour ago,' and then I came over funny, and when she asked me to help her clean the mess up I couldn't not if my life depended on it. But I don't feel like that now," she ended consequently. "I'll go back and do it!" She collected her traps and departed.
   "Thomas!" muttered Rundle. "Who could have wished the Poor beast any harm? Now I remember, Mr. Fairfield did ask me to get him out a clean shirt ... I'd better go up and ask him."
   He found Antony in evening dress seated at the writing-table. He had stripped it of writing material and the light from two candles gleamed on its polished surface. Opposite to him on the other side of the table was an empty chair. He was sitting with his back to the room; his face, when he turned it at Rundle's entrance, was blotchy and looked terribly tired.
   "I decided to dine here after all, Rundle," he said. Rundle saw that the Bovril was still untouched in his cup.
   "Why, your supper'll get cold, Mr. Fairfield," he said.
   "Mind your own business," said Antony. "I'm waiting." The Empire clock on the drawing-room chimney-piece began to strike, breaking into a conversation which neither at dinner nor afterwards had been more than desultory.
   "Eleven," said Mr. Ampleforth. "The nurse will be here any time now. She ought to be grateful to you, Ronald, for getting him into bed."
   "I didn't enjoy treating Antony like that," said Ronald.
   There was a silence.
   "What was that?" asked Maggie suddenly. "It sounded like the motor."
   "Might have been," said Mr. Ampleforth. "You can't tell from here."
   They strained their ears, but the rushing sound had already died away. "Eileen's'gone to bed, Maggie," said Mrs. Ampleforth. "Why don't you? We'll wait up for the nurse, and tell you when she comes."
   Rather reluctantly Maggie agreed to go.
   She had been in her bedroom about ten minutes, and was feeling too tired to take her clothes off, when there came a knock at the door. It was Eileen.
   "Maggie," she said, "the nurse has arrived. I thought you'd like to know."
   "Oh, how kind of you," said Maggie. "They were going to tell me, but I expect they forgot. Where is she?"
   "In Antony's room. I was coming from the bath and his door was open."
   "Did she look nice?"
   "I only saw her back."
   "I think I'll go along and speak to her," said Maggie.
   "Yes, do. I don't think I'll go with you."
   As she walked along the passage Maggie wondered what she would say to the nurse. She didn't mean to offer her professional advice. But even nurses are human, and Maggie didn't want this stranger to imagine that Antony was, well, always like that - the spoilt, tiresome, unreasonable creature of the last few hours. She could find no harsher epithets for him, even after all his deliberate unkindness. The woman would probably have heard that Maggie was his fiancee; Maggie would try to show her that she was proud of the relationship and felt it an honour.
   The door was still open so she knocked and walked in. But the figure that uncoiled itself from Antony's pillow and darted at her a look of malevolent triumph was not a nurse, nor was her face strange to Maggie; Maggie could see, so intense was her vision at that moment, just what strokes Antony had used to transform her own portrait into Lady Elinor's. She was terrified, but she could not bear to see Antony's rather long hair nearly touching the floor nor the creature's thin hand on his labouring throat. She advanced, resolved at whatever cost to break up this dreadful tableau. She approached near enough to realise that what seemed a strangle-hold was probably a caress, when Antony's eyes rolled up at her and words, frothy and toneless like a chain of bursting bubbles, came popping from the corner of his swollen mouth: "Get out, damn you!" At the same moment she heard the stir of presences behind her and a voice saying, "Here is the patient, nurse; I'm afraid he's half out of bed, and here's Maggie, too. What have you been doing to him, Maggie?" Dazed, she turned about. "Can't you see?" she cried; but she might have asked the question of herself, for when she looked back she could only see a tumbled bed, the vacant pillow, and Antony's hair trailing the floor.

   The nurse was a sensible woman. Fortified by tea, she soon bundled everybody out of the room. A deeper quiet than night ordinarily brings invaded the house. The reign of illness had begun.
   A special embargo was laid on Maggie's visits. The nurse said she had noticed that Miss Winthrop's presence agitated the patient. But Maggie extracted a promise that she should be called if Antony got worse. She was too tired and worried to sleep, even if she had tried to, so she sat up fully dressed in a chair, every now and then trying to allay her anxiety by furtive visits to Antony's bedroom door.
   The hours passed on leaden feet. She tried to distract herself by reading the light literature with which her hostess had provided her. Though she could not keep her attention on the books, she continued to turn their pages, for only so could she keep at bay the conviction that had long been forming at the back of her mind and that now threatened to engulf her whole consciousness: the conviction that the legend about Low Threshold was true. She was neither hysterical nor superstitious, and for a moment she had managed to persuade herself that what she had seen in Antony's room was an hallucination. The passing hours robbed her of that solace. Antony was the victim of Lady Elinor's vengeance. Everything pointed to it: the circumstances of her appearance, the nature of Antony's illness, the horrible deterioration in his character - to say nothing of the drawings, and the cat.
   There were only two ways of saving him. One was to get him out of the house; she had tried that and failed; if she tried again she would fail more signally than before. But there remained the other way.
   The old book about The Tragicall Happenings at Low Threshold Hall still reposed in a drawer; for the sake of her peace of mind Maggie had vowed not to take it out, and till now she had kept her vow. But as the sky began to pale with the promise of dawn and her conviction of Antony's mortal danger grew apace, her resolution broke down.
   "Whereby we must conclude," she read, "that the Lady Elinor, like other Apparitions, is subject to certain Lawes. One, to abandon her Victim and seeking another tenement enter into it and transfer her vengeance, should its path be crossed by a Body yet nearer Dissolution ..."
   A knock that had been twice repeated, startled her out of her reverie.
   "Come in!"
   "Miss Winthrop," said the nurse, "I'm sorry to tell you the patient is weaker. I think the doctor had better be telephoned for."
   "I'll go and get someone," said Maggie. "Is he much worse?"
   "Very much, I'm afraid."
   Maggie had no difficulty in finding Rundle; he was already up.
   "What time is it, Rundle?" she asked. "I've lost count." "Half-past four, miss." He looked very sorry for her.
   "When will the doctor be here?"
   "In about an hour, miss, not more."
   Suddenly she had an idea. "I'm so tired, Rundle, I think I shall try to get some sleep. Tell them not to call me unless . . . unless . . ."
   "Yes, miss," said Rundle. "You look altogether done up."
   About an hour! So she had plenty of time. She took up the book again. "Transfer her vengeance . . . seeking another tenement ... a Body nearer Dissolution." Her idle thoughts turned with compassion to the poor servant girl whose death had spelt recovery to Lord Deadham's cousin but been so little regarded: "the night was spent" before they heard that she was dead. Well, this night was spent already. Maggie shivered. "I shall die in my sleep," she thought. "But shall I feel her come?" Her tired body sickened with nausea at the idea of such a loathsome violation. But the thought still nagged at her. "Shall I realise even for a moment that I'm changing into . . . into?" Her mind refused to frame the possibility. "Should I have time to do anyone an "injury?" she wondered. "I could tie my feet together with a handkerchief; that would prevent me from walking." Walking . . . walking . . . The word let loose on her mind a new flood of horrors. She could not do it! She could not lay herself open for ever to this horrible occupation! Her tormented imagination began to busy itself with the details of her funeral; she saw mourners following her coffin into the church. But Antony was not amongst them; he was better but too ill to be there. He could not understand why she had killed herself, for the note she had left gave no hint of the real reason, referred only to continual sleeplessness and nervous depression. So she would not have his company when her body was committed to the ground. But that was a mistake; it would not be her body, it would belong to that other woman and be hers to return to by the right of possession.
   All at once the screen which had recorded such vivid images to her mind's eye went blank; and her physical eye, released, roamed wildly about the room. It rested on the book she was still holding. "She cannot possess or haunt the corpse," she read, "after it has received Christian Buriall." Here was a ray of comfort. But (her fears warned her) being a suicide she might not be allowed Christian burial. How then? Instead of the churchyard she saw a cross-roads, with a slanting signpost on which the words could no longer be read; only two or three people were there; they kept looking furtively about them and the grave-digger had thrown his spade aside and was holding a stake . . .
   She pulled herself together with a jerk. "These are all fancies," she thought. "It wasn't fancy when I signed the poison book." She took up the little glass cylinder; there were eighteen tablets and the dose was one or two. Daylight was broadening apace; she must hurry. She took some notepaper and wrote for five minutes. She had reached the words "No one is to blame" when suddenly her ears were assailed by a tremendous tearing, whirring sound: it grew louder and louder until the whole room vibrated. In the midst of the deafening din something flashed past the window, for a fraction of a second blotting out the daylight. Then there was a crash such as she had never heard in her life.
   All else forgotten, Maggie ran to the window. An indescribable scene of wreckage met her eyes. The aeroplane had been travelling at a terrific pace: it was smashed to atoms. To right and left the lawn was littered with fragments, some of which had made great gashes in the grass, exposing the earth. The pilot had been flung clear; she could just see his legs sticking out from a flowerbed under the wall of the house. They did not move and she thought he must be dead.
   While she was wondering what to do she heard voices underneath the window.
   "We don't seem to be very lucky here just now, Rundle," said Mr. Ampleforth.
   "No, sir."
   There was a pause. Then Mr. Ampleforth spoke again.
   "He's still breathing, I think."
   "Yes, sir, he is, just."
   "You take his head and I'll take his feet, and we'll get him into the house."
   Something began to stir in Maggie's mind. Rundle replied:
   "If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, I don't think we ought to move him. I was told once by a doctor that if a man's had a fall or anything it's best to leave him lying."
   "I don't think it'll matter if we're careful."
   "Really, sir, if you'll take my advice—"
   There was a note of obstinacy in Rundle's voice. Maggie, almost beside herself with agitation, longed to fling open the window and cry "Bring him in! Bring him in!" But her hand seemed paralysed and her throat could not form the words.
   Presently Mr. Ampleforth said:
   "You know we can't let him stay here. It's beginning to rain."
   (Bring him in! Bring him in!)
   "Well, sir, it's your responsibility . . ."
   Maggie's heart almost stopped beating.
   "Naturally I don't want to do anything to hurt the poor chap."
   (Oh, bring him in! Bring him in!)
   The rain began to patter on the pane.
   "Look here, Rundle, we must get him under cover."
   "I'll fetch that bit of wing, sir, and put over him."
   (Bring him in! Bring him in!)
   Maggie heard Rundle pulling something that grated on the gravel path. The sound ceased and Mr. Ampleforth said:
   "The very thing for a stretcher, Rundle! The earth's so soft, we can slide it under him. Careful, careful!" Both men were breathing hard. "Have you got your end? Right." Their heavy, measured footfalls grew fainter and fainter.
   The next thing Maggie heard was the motor-car returning with the doctor. Not daring to go out, and unable to sit down, she stood, how long she did not know, holding her bedroom door ajar. At last she saw the nurse coming towards her.
   "The patient's a little better, Miss Winthrop. The doctor thinks he'll pull through now."
   "Which patient?"
   "Oh, there was never any hope for the other poor fellow."
   Maggie closed her eyes.
   "Can I see Antony?" she said at last.
   "Well, you may just peep at him."
   Antony smiled at her feebly from the bed.

END