"Your conversation with him might have been overheard, I
suppose," I urged.

"It is possible, but scarcely probable," he replied. "At all events, I
am quite certain it never reached my wife's ears, or she would not have
stayed another night in the house."

I stood for a few moments irresolute, but then I spoke. I told him how
much we--meaning Messrs. Craven and Son--his manager and his cashier,
and his clerks, regretted the inconvenience to which he had been put;
delicately I touched upon the concern we felt at hearing of Mrs. Morris'
illness. But, I added, I feared his explanation, courteous and ample as
it had been, would not satisfy Miss Blake, and trusted he might, upon
consideration, feel disposed to compromise the matter.

"We," I added, "will be only too happy to recommend our client to accept
any reasonable proposal you may think it well to make."

Whereupon it suddenly dawned upon the Colonel that he had been
showing me all his hand, and forthwith he adopted a very natural
course. He ordered me to leave the room and the hotel, and not to
show my face before him again at my peril. And I obeyed his
instructions to the letter.

On the same evening of that day I took a long walk round by the
Uninhabited House.

There it was, just as I had seen it last, with high brick walls dividing
it from the road; with its belt of forest-trees separating it from the