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“THE only fault I have to find with Devonshire,” Goade remarked from the depths of a comfortable chair in the bar parlour of the Wryde Arms, “is its climate.”

The local ironmonger, Tom Berry by name, appeared mildly puzzled.

“What’s wrong with it, sir?” he demanded.

Goade pointed towards the streaming window-panes. For two days he and Flip had been obliged to suspend their wanderings.

“Rain,” he declared. “Look at that! Two days of it, and more to come. Everywhere else in England the reports promise fine weather.”

The ironmonger gazed out of the window, and scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“Us wouldn’t call that rain,” he expostulated. “It’s misting like, but it don’t do no harm.”

“It would wet you to the skin in ten minutes if you went out in it,” Goade rejoined.

Tom Berry smiled. He was a tolerant man, always willing to recognise the stranger’s point of view.

“It dries off in no time,” he remarked. “A drop of good rain water does do good to the skin and the body—freshens things up like. Too much dry sunshine breeds disease, they do say.”

“I reckon Tom’s right,” Farrow, the local butcher, agreed, with twinkling eyes. “Sun makes dust, and all the doctor folks say that where there’s dust there do be germs. Now, I should say there wouldn’t be a speck of dust in Wryde come a fortnight.”

“I’m quite willing to admit that,” Goade conceded, “but you can’t get about much in weather like this, can you?”

“It be good for the crops,” Mr. Farrow, who farmed in a small way, observed.

“And it be good for us humans,” Tom Berry added. “They be strong men in these parts, and I reckon the finest women in the West Country.”

“What, right here in Wryde?” Goade asked.

“Right here, as you may say, in this small town,” was the confident reply. “There’s no one can deny that our womenfolk are something exceptional—famous too, many of them have been. There’s Anna Craske, the schoolmaster’s daughter—she was painted for the Academy. And then there were the Misses Drysdale of the Red House.”

“The Beautiful Sisters of Wryde,” the landlady remarked from the other side of the bar. “That’s how they did use to be called, those poor ladies.”

“Are they still to be seen?” Goade enquired.

The landlady shook her head. She was a middle-aged, pleasant-looking woman, severely neat in her dress, inclined also to some slight severity of deportment. She finished cleaning a tumbler, put it away on the shelf, and turned around again.

“There’s only one left here, sir—Miss Adelaide,” she confided. “Their looks have brought them little enough of good fortune, poor dears!”

“The others are married?” Goade asked, more for the sake of keeping the dawdling conversation alive than from any real curiosity.

“One doesn’t rightly know what has become of them,” the landlady confessed after a moment’s embarrassed pause. “Miss Adelaide may have it in her mind, but, though she’s a truthful-speaking person and an earnest church-goer, there are times—”

She hesitated. Her embarrassment seemed shared by the whole of the little company.

“One doesn’t count altogether upon what Miss Adelaide do say with regard to those sisters,” Mr. Farrow ventured. “She’s proud. All the Drysdales were proud. There’s some as says that she doesn’t know. It’s a certain thing that that story of hers about Miss Henrietta having married a millionaire American was not, so to speak, the exact truth.”

“How many sisters were there altogether?” Goade enquired.

“There were three in all,” the landlady confided. “Miss Adelaide—she were the eldest; Miss Henrietta—she came next; and Miss Rosalind—she were the youngest. Miss Rosalind would be—let me see—thirty-two years old cum Christmas. Miss Adelaide must be nearing forty. Miss Henrietta, she was somewhere betwixt and between.”

“Is there really any mystery about the two who have left the place?” Goade went on, stroking Flip, who had struggled on to his knee.

There was a brief, uneasy silence. Mr. Farrow was filling his pipe; Tom Berry was gazing through the streaming window panes. The landlady sighed.

“Some mystery it do seem that there may be, sir,” she admitted. “It well might be tragedy. This bean’t a place for gossip, as you’d find out if you stayed with us for a little time, but, if a power of talk could make it clear where those two have gone, there’s many on us would talk from morning till night for the sake of poor Miss Adelaide.”

Mr. Berry suddenly held up a warning finger. They all glanced at Goade significantly. The landlady leaned across the counter.

“Be careful, sir,” she whispered.

There was a tap at the door, which was softly opened. A woman entered, at the sight of whom the two tradesmen rose at once to their feet, an example which Goade also followed. Notwithstanding the simplicity of her attire—she was wearing an unbecoming mackintosh from which the rain was streaming, and something which was almost like a sou’wester hat—there was a quality about her presence, her voice, a beauty of feature, complexion and colouring which would have made her a striking figure in any assembly. She smiled upon them all graciously. Her attention, however, was riveted upon Goade.

“You wall excuse my trespassing, Mrs. Delbridge,” she begged. “I heard that there was a stranger here—a gentleman from London, perhaps.”

“You be never trespassing, Miss Drysdale,” the landlady announced heartily. “Place a chair, Mr. Farrow. Will ‘e sit ‘e down a minute, Miss Drysdale?”

The woman shook her head. She looked intently at Goade, and there was an appeal in her gaze—a long, searching gaze from beautiful, softly shining grey eyes—which affected him curiously.

“I have most unfortunately,” she explained, “lost the addresses of my two sisters, who left this place on a visit to London. They wrote to me regularly, of course, but my maid unfortunately, whilst cleaning my sitting-room one day, destroyed all their letters. Naturally, not hearing from me, they have discontinued writing. My only chance of hearing of them now seems to be that some traveller like yourself may have come across them. The name of the elder is Henrietta. She is very like me. Rosalind, the younger one, has fairer hair, and her eyes are blue, not grey.”

Her anxious gaze remained mutely interrogative. Goade was suddenly aware that every one was trying to make covert signs to him. He was quick to understand.

“I am very sorry, madam,” he said, “but I do not seem to remember having met either of them. Now that you have spoken to me, I shall of course explain, if we meet, that you are anxious to hear from them.”

There was a little breath of relief. The woman smiled graciously.

“That will be very kind of you, sir,” she admitted. “There was a rumour—we heard something about Henrietta having married an American millionaire. There was nothing definite—nothing definite at all. If you will do me the kindness of paying me a short visit this evening, I will show you their photographs. I live at the Red House. Any one in the village will direct you. I am exceedingly obliged to you. Good afternoon, Mrs. Delbridge; good afternoon, gentlemen.”

Goade was just in time to open the door. She passed out with a gesture and a smile which a queen might have bestowed upon a faithful servant. They heard her footsteps upon the stone floor.

No one spoke until the outer door had swung to.

“That’s poor Miss Adelaide hersen,” Mrs. Delbridge confided. “A little touched in the head, poor lady—as well she may be, living all these years alone. A merciful tiling it was that the gentleman was quick to take notice of it. She be easily hurt in her pride, the poor lady. There’s never a stranger comes to the place but she doesn’t ask the same question. They most of them humour her, as you did.”

“The singular part of it is,” Goade, who had been gazing out of the window with a puzzled frown upon his face, declared, “that I believe I could tell her where her sister Henrietta is.”

There was a moment’s breathless and incredulous silence. Mr. Farrow had paused in the act of knocking the ashes from his pipe and was staring open-mouthed at the speaker. Tom Berry had set down the tumbler which he had been about to raise to his lips, and had also become a mute effigy of amazement. Mrs. Delbridge was the first to recover herself.

“And where might Miss Henrietta be?” she gasped.

Goade hesitated.

“If I am right,” he replied gravely, “in Wandsworth Prison.”

The doctor came bustling in soon afterwards for his usual sherry and bitters—a fussy little man who concealed a certain nervousness of deportment by an assumption of being always in a great hurry. He was short and unprepossessing-looking, but his eyes were both shrewd and kindly.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, as, carrying his glass in his hand, he moved toward a comfortable chair, “what weather! What damnable weather! A thoroughly depressing evening! I have just come from the Red House. I wish to God I’d never gone there a day like this.”

“Miss Adelaide was in here half an hour ago, doctor,” the landlady informed him.

The doctor nodded.

“So she told me. You’ve noticed no change of course, but it is there. As the body falls away the mind will weaken. In a year from to-day, if she is alive, she will be insane.”

“May God forbid,” Mrs. Delbridge exclaimed fervently. “Wryde won’t seem the same place.”

“If by any chance,” the doctor continued, sipping his sherry and bitters—“by any possible chance Miss Rosalind or Miss Henrietta, or, better still, both of them, should turn up, things might be altogether different. What’s killing her is the anxiety and this daily little torment of deceit. She’s too proud to admit that they are deliberately keeping her in ignorance of their whereabouts, and all the time she’s eating her heart out.”

Goade found his thoughts travelling backwards. He was at the Old Bailey. There was a woman in the dock for whom things were going badly. Even now he could see her white face, her haunting eyes, the look she had cast at him as though in prayer—a look he had never forgotten.

“The worst of it is,” the doctor reflected, “that one can’t suggest advertising, because Miss Adelaide will never admit that the correspondence has ceased for more than a few days. A difficult situation! A very difficult situation!”

“And in the meanwhile,” Goade quoted under his breath, “the patient dies.”

That night, after his evening meal, Goade paid his promised call and lived for an hour or more with tragedy. The Red House was imposing enough—a fine Georgian structure, lying a little way from the road—but everything about it bespoke a bitter struggle against penury. The avenue was unweeded and the flower beds unfilled. Miss Adelaide herself answered the door. Her little word of apology seemed to indicate that the waiting servants had been outdistanced by her desire to see him. She led the way into a sitting-room, where there was plenty of good furniture, but a terrible atmosphere of gloom and disuse. Their footsteps sounded hollow, and Goade felt convinced that there was no one else in the house.

She seated herself on one side of the fireplace, and for a moment held out her hands to an imaginary blaze.

“I should like you to have met my sisters, Mr. Goade,” she began. “They are unfortunately, as I have explained, both away for a short time. People miss them here. They are kind enough to tell me so often. I miss them myself. It is so foolish, too, that I have mislaid their addresses, and that all my letters from them should have been burnt. You are quite sure that you have not come across either of them in London?”

“I believe not,” he answered, “but I should be surer still if you could show me their pictures.”

She fetched him an album—an ordinary-looking little affair, filled with snapshots. In nearly all the cases the setting was the same. The three sisters were lingering outside one of the shops in the village street; they were crossing the road; pausing to speak to an acquaintance; entering their gate or issuing from it. Yet in a way these snapshots, some of them badly enough taken, had one point of amazing interest. The three women were the most beautiful he had ever seen together. There was in each the same graceful but assured carriage, the same long, supple body, the same perfect features and delightful expression.

“Why, you might almost have been of the same age,” he remarked.

“There really seemed to be very little difference when we were together,” she assented. “We lived the same lives; we had the same ideas until lately. Then perhaps there was a change; I have sometimes wondered.”

“A change?” he suggested, hoping for some further enlightenment.

“I myself,” she said, “was always content. Sometimes, though, I fancied that Henrietta, and even Rosalind, would have liked to have adventured a little farther into the world. Our morning walks, which to me were always sufficient, palled upon them at times. Their eyes wandered farther. Doctor Capper’s greeting, Mr. Berry’s rustic compliments, the smiling faces of all the villagers, their remarks that we could scarcely help overhearing sometimes, always made my day’s pleasure. I think they began to want other things. They would watch a touring car passing through the place—a man and a woman perhaps, with luggage—wistfully. We came across shooting parties sometimes from the Hall. Henrietta and Rosalind were always a little over-interested in the guests. And then, as you know, the time came when, first of all, Henrietta went, and afterwards Rosalind, and since then it has been lonely; and, although of course I know that they are well and happy and will soon be here again, sometimes I am anxious. I should like to have word from them. Now that you have seen the pictures, Mr. Goade, is there anything more you can tell me?”

He avoided her eyes.

“Nothing more at present, I am afraid,” he admitted, “but I should like to take one of these snapshots with me—this one, if you don’t mind.”

She cut it out for him with careful fingers.

“I should like so much to meet Henrietta’s husband—that is, if she is really married,” she said. “And Rosalind—if I could have just a line from her. If they could come back just for a day or two and we could walk once more down the village street at half-past eleven, to have the people look at us and say the old things, I think I should feel rested. I think the pains I have sometimes in my heart, that Doctor Capper cannot understand, would go.”

For a single moment there was more in her eyes than should shine from the eyes of any sane woman. Goade rose to his feet.

“I must see what I can do,” he promised cheerfully. “I am sure if they knew they would come.”

“You are right,” she declared. “If they knew! You must help me, Mr. Goade. You have the pictures. Henrietta could never escape observation. You will find her.”

“I feel sure,” he agreed, “that I shall find her.”

Goade walked a little sadly through the empty streets back to the inn. Once under the arch, he paused to look out at the weather. The rain which did not count in Devonshire was descending in waves of irresistible moisture. There were puddles everywhere, a small stream surging down by the side of the pavements. He returned, thrust his head in at the bar window and demanded a timetable.

“You’re not leaving us, Mr. Goade?” the landlady asked.

“I might go away for a couple of days until the weather improves,” Goade explained.

She looked at him a little dubiously.

“You don’t fancy our Devon mists.”

“I find them,” he acknowledged, “almost as bad as rain.”

At two o’clock on the following afternoon Goade presented himself unexpectedly in the office of one of his staff at Scotland Yard. He met with a good-natured but somewhat surprised welcome from a fat little man who sat in the seat of authority.

“Hullo, Goade! Your holiday’s not up yet.”

“Bad weather and a trifling matter of curiosity brought me to town for a couple of days,” Goade explained. “Who’s got the ‘Silent Woman’ case in hand—Mona Cross, she called herself?”

The inspector referred to a book.

“Jo Bates,” he confided. “He’s here now. Want to see him?”

Goade nodded.

“I’d like to.”

A bell was rung. A burly, capable-looking man of early middle age presently made his appearance and greeted Goade warmly.

“Mr. Goade wants to know about the Mona Cross case,” the occupant of the room confided. “Run it through quickly.”

The newcomer nodded.

“Mona Cross, spinster, widow, or God knows what else, damned good-looking, about thirty years of age, living alone, small flat in Marylebone. A man named Jackson, a lawyer, not too good a character, found shot there one night. A neighbour heard the report of the gun and fetched a policeman. Woman never said a word; man appeared to be dying. The woman was taken to Wandsworth Jail. She never answered a question, never opened her lips. She’s been up twice, but each time case adjourned; first time to see whether the man lived, next to see whether he was able to give evidence. The man was reported well enough to make a statement early this morning. I was going down there about four o’clock.”

“Mind if I take it on instead?” Goade asked.

“Of course not, sir,” the other, who was his subordinate, replied. “He’s at St. Paul’s Hospital, Ward Number 234.”

Goade spent another hour at the Yard looking up some records. Soon after four he presented himself at the hospital and was conducted into the ward in which Jackson was being treated. A sister placed a chair at the side of the bed.

“A gentleman from Scotland Yard come to talk to you, Mr. Jackson,” she announced pleasantly. “You’re feeling well enough to-day, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m strong enough for that,” the patient admitted.

The two men exchanged glances. Goade saw the wreck of a man of medium size, loose featured and with cunning eyes. Illness had at once brought out the worst and the best in him; it had robbed him of the grossness of too good living, but even accentuated a certain maliciousness of expression.

“You will remember, won’t you,” Goade began, “that I am from Scotland Yard? I may say that I am in a position of some authority there. I understand that you are practically out of danger now, and, as the woman in whose flat you were found has already been detained for some time, unless there is adequate reason for it the authorities feel that she should be released.”

The invalid moistened his lips. He looked at the notebook Goade was holding.

“I can give you plenty of reasons for her detention,” he said. “In the first place, the shooting.”

“Don’t hurry,” Goade enjoined. “Let me have a word. I should like you to understand that Scotland Yard has your complete dossier. You seem to have skimmed the edge of trouble once or twice, and your record with women isn’t altogether a pleasant one.”

“What’s that got to do with—”

“Stop!” Goade interrupted. “I wouldn’t excite yourself, Mr. Jackson. That’s bad for you in your state of health. Just listen to me. Amongst other things which have come to our notice is the fact that you’ve been accustomed to do the—don’t be angry if I say ‘dirty work’—for a certain great man who lives down in Devonshire… Yes, I thought that might surprise you; but we know, and there’s just an idea that your visit to Miss Mona Cross—she called herself that, I think—might have been on behalf of that gentleman; only unfortunately you let yourself go a little on your own account.”

“She’s been talking,” Jackson muttered.

“As a matter of fact,” Goade went on, “she has scarcely opened her lips, but some of her history has come to light. Now, I am not speaking officially, but I don’t mind telling you that I should like to have a statement from you to the effect that you found the woman in great distress, that your news was not encouraging, that she threatened to shoot herself, that you naturally endeavoured to take the weapon from her, as a man of courage would, that in the struggle it went off and you were wounded. Somehow or other, I fancy, Mr. Jackson, that that story might be good for every one concerned.”

The man lay and gazed at the ceiling.

“Write it out,” he decided, after a time. “I’ll sign it.”…

Goade, on leaving the hospital, was driven to an address in Sloane Street. A correct-looking manservant ushered him into a study of most luxurious and attractive appearance. Within a few moments a tall man, dressed with scrupulous care, entered the room. He looked at Goade enquiringly.

“I am Sir Martin Wryde,” he announced. “What can I do for you?”

“I am Goade of Scotland Yard,” Goade confided, “and I have come to ask you a few questions with reference to the shooting affair in Halsey Street some time back.”

Sir Martin stood for a moment like a man turned to stone. Then he felt the detective’s eyes upon him, and he made a violent attempt at self-recovery.

“What the mischief do you mean?” he demanded. “The shooting affair?”

“A lawyer named Jackson was found shot in the house of a lady calling herself Mona Cross, but whose real name is Henrietta Drysdale,” Goade explained. “The lawyer was, I believe, an agent there to make certain propositions to Miss Drysdale on your account. If you would prefer not to discuss this matter, Sir Martin, pray wait for your subpoena. I will tell you at once that I am not here altogether officially, although I expect my position at Scotland Yard is well known to you.”

“For God’s sake, ask me anything you want to,” Sir Martin exclaimed, throwing himself into an easy-chair. “I’d almost be relieved to have the whole story blazoned out in the papers, and face ruin. I’ve stood all I can. I suppose Henrietta’s given me away.”

“The lady,” Goade told him, “possesses that common attribute of all the most wonderful of her sex. She errs on the side of an unconquerable fidelity. She has never opened her lips. Others have discovered the truth, and out of deference to her have hesitated to make use of it.”

“Let’s know the worst,” Sir Martin insisted. “Here’s my story: We were neighbours in Devonshire, and I swear to you that a more beautiful woman than Henrietta Drysdale never lived. I’d have married her, but at that time I hadn’t a penny. The interest on the mortgages of Wryde wiped me out. I was Member for the Division, came to London, joined the Boards of some companies, got a small job at the Foreign Office, and made good. I’m climbing now all the time. I ought to have married her, of course. When I sent for her to come to London I meant to, and then I thought—well, the same sort of thing that better and worse men than I have thought, I suppose. I lodged a little money in the bank. I sent Jackson to see her. I tried to make an arrangement.”

“That’s a straight story, at any rate, Sir Martin,” Goade confessed. “I’ll be equally straight with you. These facts have stumbled into my hands. I’m practically second in command of our department at Scotland Yard, and I have all the authority needed. Just now I’m on a vacation. I’d rather remain on vacation. I’d like to speak to you as Nicholas Goade to Sir Martin Wryde. I can get Henrietta Drysdale released in three days, on the strength of the statement I have from Jackson. Give me your word of honour to marry her and the whole thing’s a ‘washout.’”

Sir Martin rose to his feet. He came over towards Goade, and stood there with his hand upon his shoulder, looking into his face.

“My God, man, you mean that?” he demanded.

“I mean it.”

They shook hands. Goade took up his hat.

“If I have any luck,” he said, “you’ll find Miss Henrietta down at Wryde in three days’ time.”

Goade waited for the next day before he visited Wandsworth, and then he took with him an order of release. He felt almost a little shock when the matron brought the so-called Mona Cross into the dingy waiting-room. Her beauty took his breath away, though it was the beauty of a dead face. She smiled at him gently, but said nothing.

“Not a word,” the matron told him, “has passed her lips since she came.”

“If you will leave us alone,” Goade promised, “she will speak to me.”

“It’s slightly against the regulations,” the matron demurred.

Goade showed her the order of release.

“The affair is finished,” he said. “The man who was shot admits that he was struggling to get the revolver away from her.”

Henrietta Drysdale started ever so slightly. As the door was closed she looked at him. It was then for the first time for two months she broke silence.

“But that is not true,” she exclaimed.

“It is going to be true,” Goade assured her. “Jackson has sworn it and signed the statement. He did it to save himself worse trouble. It may not be the truth, but it is justice.”

“Who are you and how do you know anything about it?” she demanded.

“It is a long story. All the same, I bring you good news. Let me look at you.”

“Look at me?” she repeated wonderingly. He took her by the hands.

“Henrietta Drysdale,” he said, “I like your face. I see the right things in it. Are you great enough to forgive?”

“I think,” she sighed, “that all women can do that—even too easily.”

“Will you forgive Sir Martin, and marry him?”

She began to tremble. Then those eyes which had seemed wonderful to him before grew more wonderful as the tears shone in them.

“I don’t need to press that,” he continued, “but there is something even more important: your sister—Adelaide—she is losing her mind. The solitude has sapped her health. You must go back to her to-morrow, or the day after. Sir Martin will come down there in search of you.”

“But who are you?” she demanded again.

He waved the question away.

“And now,” he said—“Rosalind?”

The woman shivered.

“I am afraid to think,” she muttered. “It was my fault too. Rosalind was younger than I.”

“Is it too late?” he asked.

“Not unless she has starved to death,” Henrietta replied. “Rosalind is prouder even than I—prouder even than Adelaide. She lived in rooms apart from me, because Martin was so terrified that she might see him at my flat. She was trying to get on the stage.”

“Give me her address,” he begged.

She scribbled on the back of an envelope which he placed before her. He thrust it into his pocket and took up his hat.

“But who are you?” she asked once more, as he turned towards the door.

“Well,” he answered good-humouredly, “for a few weeks I am nobody. I am a man on a vacation in Devonshire with a Ford car and a little dog. I got tired of waiting for fine weather, so, you see, for a day or two I came to town and am making a busybody of myself. We shall meet in Wryde.”

He laid an envelope upon the table.

“Money for your journey,” he announced. “It comes from Adelaide.”

His other call threatened to be the most tragic of the three. His face fell as he noted the character of the neighbourhood, received the effusive greeting of a yellow-haired landlady, mounted the narrow stairway, with its tattered strip of carpet and stuffy odours, climbed higher and higher, until he reached the fifth floor and knocked at a plain deal door. A choked voice bade him come in, and he at once entered. There was no furniture in the room, beyond a plain iron bedstead and a washstand, hooks in the wall and one cane chair, obviously unsafe. From her knees before a small trunk which she had been packing there arose the third of the “Beautiful Sisters of Wryde”, and as he saw her Goade gasped.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “How beautiful you are!”

A faint flush came into her cheeks.

“Who are you?” she asked coldly.

“A friend,” he assured her.

“God knows I need one!” she cried passionately.

“Where are you going with that?” he enquired, pointing to the trunk.

“To hell,” she answered.

“I will accept the allegory,” he observed pleasantly, “but to what particular part of it?”

“I am going out with a touring company to Blackpool, under the direction of Mr. Montague Massen,” she confided bitterly. “If you know Mr. Montague Massen you will know what that means. If you do not you must accept what I tell you—that I am going to hell.”

“It appears to me, then,” he remarked, “that I am just in time.”

She looked at him earnestly.

“Surely you are a stranger!”

“Not a bit of it,” he rejoined. “I am an old friend of your sister Adelaide, and a new one of your sister Henrietta. I was in Wryde itself forty-eight hours ago. I shall be there again within a few days. You will be there before then. Here,” he went on, laying another envelope upon the table, “is money for your bill—I am sure the landlady will want you to pay before you leave—your expenses down to Wryde, and,” he added apologetically—“a new gown.”

She sat down upon the bed, her hands flat on each side of her.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“I mean,” he explained, “that I am the sort of person who drops down from the clouds now and then—sent to straighten things out, you know! You needn’t really believe in me unless you want to. Now seriously, please, Miss Rosalind—are you listening?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And I do want to believe in you!”

“Your sister Adelaide is the most tragic figure on earth. She has gone half out of her mind and thinks that she has just lost your addresses for a time. She has no idea that either of you has met with any trouble. You must both of you return, not as penitents, but in triumph. Will you please go down to Wryde to-morrow?”

“Of course,” the girl half sobbed. “Is there anything in the world which could be more wonderful than to be back in the Red House in peace and safety. I’d go as scullery maid to the Wryde Arms rather than face what I have faced here.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to do that,” he assured her. “You will go back to-morrow by the eleven o’clock train. Your sister Henrietta will be there the next day.”

“Do you mean that they are going to set her free?” she faltered.

“Not only that,” he replied, “but Sir Martin is going to marry her. I can leave you safely, can I? You give me your word to catch the eleven o’clock train to-morrow? You’ll find all the money you need in that envelope.”

“Oh, I promise, but you must tell me who you are? What am I to say? You know what you have saved me from. You know what there is here throbbing in my heart.”

Her lips were trembling. Goade himself suddenly felt a queer sensation. He caught up his hat. Nothing so absurd had ever happened to him. Nevertheless, he bent his head very low as he kissed her fingers.

“My dear,” he said, “I am just a man on a vacation with a little dog and a crazy car, held up by wet weather. So, as I told your sister, I became a busybody. You won’t fail me to-morrow?”

“Fail you!” she repeated passionately. “Never!”

Three days later the mists had all rolled away. The sun shone down on the red-roofed, picturesque little town of Wryde. It was half-past eleven, and there was the usual mid-morning stir in the quiet, clean streets. The gates of the Red House were thrown open and the three sisters emerged. Miss Adelaide, bearing herself proudly as ever, walked in the middle. On her left was Henrietta; on her right Rosalind. The roadman hastened to close the gates after them, taking off his hat with a flourish. Mr. Berry, the ironmonger, hurried from behind the counter to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop as they passed. Mr. Farrow, steel in hand, hastened out on to the pavement.

“Good morning, Mr. Berry,” Adelaide said graciously. “We are coming in to see you presently, when we have done our shopping with Mr. Farrow.”

“I shall be proud to see you, madam and ladies,” Mr. Berry declared. “Wryde is itself again now.”

Adelaide was all smiles. Rosalind lingered behind for a moment—there was a speck of dust in her eye; Henrietta stooped to pick up a handkerchief which she had dropped. Then they moved on. The doctor from across the street waved his hand; the veterinary surgeon, riding a young horse, was just able to control it sufficiently to take off his hat and venture upon a word of welcome. Mr. Sparrow, the tailor, with his tape measure still about his shoulders, came timidly forward to make his bows. From the snug bar parlour Mrs. Delbridge hurried to the courtyard in time to drop her curtsey.

“You see,” Adelaide pointed out with triumph, “how glad every one is that you two have come back. There’s Mr. Farrow getting ready for us. You must choose carefully this morning, Henrietta, as Martin is coming to lunch.”

A battered Ford car came wheezing up the village hill. By the side of the man at the wheel was a small white dog. Then, for a moment, two of the “Beautiful Sisters of Wryde” faltered in that graceful progress. They moved out towards the middle of the street. Goade descended. He, too, joined in the homage. With an instinct un-English, yet which seemed suddenly natural to him, he bent low over their fingers, hat in hand.

“You know this gentleman, my dears?” Adelaide enquired, shaking hands with him herself. “But I see that you do. He was so kind to me when you were away, so interested to hear about your forthcoming marriage, Henrietta, so sympathetic because for a few days I had lost your addresses, and could obtain no news of you. Mr. Goade, you must really come and have tea with us one day—you and that delightful little dog of yours.”

Nicholas Goade made his adieux and climbed back into his car.

“Some day, Miss Drysdale, I should love to come,” he said, “but in these parts, alas! I am only a passer-by.”

Then the “Beautiful Sisters of Wryde” went on their way; but one of them was feeling sad at heart.