"There goes a sensible, good-looking woman," thought Atkins, and he
thought highly of Mrs. Wilder for her visit to Heath. He said so to the
Rector of St. Jude's as they dined together, remarking on the fact that
very few women bothered about sick servants, and he was surprised at the
cold lack of enthusiasm with which Heath accepted his remark.

"That was what she said?"

"Yes, and I call it unusual in a country where servants are treated like
machines. I've never known Mrs. Wilder very well, but she is an
interesting woman; don't you think so, Heath?"

"I don't know," said Heath absently. "I never form definite opinions
about people on a slight knowledge of them."

Atkins felt snubbed, but he only laughed good-naturedly, and Heath
relapsed into silence.

Mrs. Wilder was dining out that night, and she looked so superbly
handsome and so defiantly well that everyone remarked upon her; and even
Draycott Wilder, who might have been supposed to be used to her beauty
and her wit, watched her with his slow, following look. Hartley was not
at the dinner-party, but afterwards echoes of its success reached him,
and a description of Mrs. Wilder herself that thrilled his romantic
sense as he listened.

Hartley was worried about the Padré, and he had warned the policeman to
watch the Compound at night; but all the watching in the world did not
explain the cause of these visits. There was a connection somewhere and
somehow between Heath and the missing Absalom, and Hartley wondered if