purpose--discern; and without a word trotted off into the hall.
Lawford followed with the candle.

''Pon my word, you haven't had a mouthful of supper. Let me
forage; just a quarter of an hour, eh?'

'Not me,' said Mr Bethany; 'if you won't have me, home I go. I
refuse to encourage this miserable grass-widowering. What WOULD
they say? What would the busybodies say? Ghouls and graves and
shocking mysteries--Selina! Sister Anne! Come on."

He shuffled on his hat and caught firm hold of his knobbed
umbrella. 'Better not leave a candle,' he said.

Lawford blew out the candle.

'What? What?' called the old man suddenly. But no voice had
spoken.

A thin trickle of light from the lamp in the street stuck up
through the fanlight as, with a smile that could be described
neither as mischievous, saturnine, nor vindictive, and was yet
faintly suggestive of all three, Lawford quietly opened the
drawing-room door and put down the candlestick on the floor
within.

'What on earth, my good man, are you fumbling after now?' came
the almost fretful question from under the echoing porch.

'Coming, coming,' said Lawford, and slammed the door behind them.