That secretaire! It seemed to have an irresistible attraction for her thoughts. She even dreamt sometimes of trying to open it, and finding fresh fastenings arise more and more complicated, as she succeeded in undoing one lock after the other. It was not Algernon's habit to lock up anything belonging to him. There must be some special reason for his doing so in this case! And to Castalia's jaundiced mind it seemed that the special reason could only be a desire to keep his letters secret from her. She grew day by day more restless. The servants at Ivy Lodge remarked with wonder their mistress's frequent absences from home. She, who had so dreaded and disliked walking, was now constantly to be seen on the road to the town, or on the meadow-path by the river. This kind of exercise, however, merely fatigued without refreshing her, and she became so lean and haggard, and her eyes had such a feverish glitter, that her looks might have alarmed anyone who loved her, and witnessed the change in her. "There she goes again!" exclaimed Lydia to her fellow servant, as she watched her mistress down the garden-path, behind the house, one afternoon. "She can't bide at home for an hour together now!" "She wears herself to the bone," said Polly, shaking her head. "She wears other folks to the bone, and that's worse," returned the pitiless Lydia. Meanwhile Castalia had passed out of the little wicket-gate of her garden into the fields, and so along the meadow-path towards Whitford. She made her way along the path resolutely, though with a languid step. The ground was hardened by recent frost, and the usually muddy track was dry. At the corner of the Grammar School playground she turned up the lane towards the High Street, keeping close to the wall of the Grammar School, so as to be out of view of any from the side windows. Before she quite reached the High Street she caught sight of Mr. Diamond, walking briskly along in the direction of his lodgings. He did not see Castalia, or did not choose to see her; for, although she had once or twice saluted him in the street, she had on another occasion regarded him with her most unrecognising stare, and Matthew Diamond was not a man to risk enduring that a second time. But Castalia quickened her step so as to intercept him before he crossed the end of Grammar School Lane. "Mr. Diamond!" she said almost out of breath. "Madam!" Diamond raised his hat and stood still, in some surprise. "Would you be kind enough--do you happen to know whether Mr. Errington has left the post-office? You must have passed the door. You might have seen him coming out." "I am sorry, madam, that I cannot inform you." "You--you haven't seen him anywhere in the town?" "No; I have only just left the Grammar School. Have you any further commands?"