Mrs. Ellsworth sat in bed staring up at her. "Either you are a fool," she
said, "or else I have caught you or _him_ in a lie. I don't know which
yet. But I soon shall. Perhaps you were not the only person in this house
who went out to-night with a latchkey. Now do you guess?"

"No, I don't," the girl had to answer, though a dreadful idea was
whirring an alarm in her brain.

"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings
than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that
Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from
rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now,
did or did _not_ a certain person walk in and surprise you at the
Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes
or no?"

"No," Annesley breathed.

"Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are
lying than _he_. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front
door?"

"It--sounds like it. But--perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice--make
such strange noises."

"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly.
Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize
door open between, as they are now.