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Hebron. She went out to America when she was “ ‘Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.’

young, and lived in the town of Atlanta, where she “So I had to be content with that, though it was married this Hebron, who was a lawyer with a good the first time that there had ever been any secret be-practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever tween us. I gave her a check, and I never thought any broke out badly in the place, and both husband and more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with child died of it. I have seen his death certificate. This what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to sickened her of America, and she came back to live mention it. with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that her husband had left her comfortably off, “Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage and that she had a capital of about four thousand five not far from our house. There is just a field between hundred pounds, which had been so well invested by us, but to reach it you have to go along the road and him that it returned an average of seven per cent. She then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice little had only been six months at Pinner when I met her; grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of we fell in love with each other, and we married a few strolling down there, for trees are always a neighborly weeks afterwards. kind of things. The cottage had been standing empty

this eight months, and it was a pity, for it was a pretty

“I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an two storied place, with an old-fashioned porch and income of seven or eight hundred, we found ourselves honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and comfortably off, and took a nice eighty-pound-a-year thought what a neat little homestead it would make. villa at Norbury. Our little place was very countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an “Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll inn and two houses a little above us, and a single down that way, when I met an empty van coming up cottage at the other side of the field which faces us, the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and things lying and except those there were no houses until you got about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear half way to the station. My business took me into that the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, town at certain seasons, but in summer I had less to and wondered what sort of folk they were who had do, and then in our country home my wife and I were come to live so near us. And as I looked I suddenly just as happy as could be wished. I tell you that there became aware that a face was watching me out of one never was a shadow between us until this accursed of the upper windows. affair began. “I don’t know what there was about that face, Mr.

“There’s one thing I ought to tell you before I go Holmes, but it seemed to send a chill right down my further. When we married, my wife made over all back. I was some little way off, so that I could not her property to me—rather against my will, for I saw make out the features, but there was something un-how awkward it would be if my business affairs went natural and inhuman about the face. That was the wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was impression that I had, and I moved quickly forwards done. Well, about six weeks ago she came to me. to get a nearer view of the person who was watching me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared, so

“ ‘Jack,’ said she, ‘when you took my money you

suddenly that it seemed to have been plucked away

said that if ever I wanted any I was to ask you for it.’

into the darkness of the room. I stood for five minutes

“ ‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘It’s all your own.’ thinking the business over, and trying to analyze my “ ‘Well,’ said she, ‘I want a hundred pounds.’ impressions. I could not tell if the face were that of “I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined a man or a woman. It had been too far from me for it was simply a new dress or something of the kind that. But its color was what had impressed me most.

that she was after. It was of a livid chalky white, and with something set and rigid about it which was shockingly unnatural.

“ ‘What on earth for?’ I asked.

So disturbed was I that I determined to see a little

“ ‘Oh,’ said she, in her playful way, ‘you said that more of the new inmates of the cottage. I approached you were only my banker, and bankers never ask and knocked at the door, which was instantly opened questions, you know.’ by a tall, gaunt woman with a harsh, forbidding face.

“ ‘If you really mean it, of course you shall have “ ‘What may you be wantin’?’ she asked, in a the money,’ said I. Northern accent.

“ ‘Oh, yes, I really mean it.’ “ ‘I am your neighbor over yonder,’ said I, nod-

“ ‘And you won’t tell me what you want it for?’ ding towards my house. ‘I see that you have only just