had not the least notion she was staying in Steynholme?"

"Not the least."

"How long ago is it since you last saw her?"

"Nearly three years."

"You were very well acquainted with her, then, or you could not have
glanced up from your table, seen someone staring at you through a
window, and said to yourself, as one may express it:--'That is Adelaide
Melhuish'."

"We were so well acquainted that I asked the lady to be my wife."

"Ah," said the superintendent.

His placid, unemotional features, however, gave no clew to his
opinions. Not so P. C. Robinson, who tried to look like a judge,
whereas he really resembled a bull-terrier who has literally, not
figuratively, smelt a rat.

Despite his earlier good resolutions, Grant was horribly impatient of
this inquisition. He admitted that the superintendent was carrying
through an unpleasant duty as inoffensively as possible, but the attitude
of the village policeman was irritating in the extreme. Nothing would
have tended so effectively to relieve his surcharged feelings as to
supply P. C. Robinson then and there with ample material for establishing
a charge of assault and battery.