"Lor, sir, well there!" she whispered to Arthur. "I've 'ad my fears. Yes, he can see you, poor gentleman! I've not said a word to 'im. And poor Miss Margaret!" She was bent on getting every ounce out of the situation. Arthur did not want to kill her--she was a good woman--but it would have relieved his feelings to jab a penknife into one of the wide margins around her vital parts. "Why is she so fat?" he groaned inwardly and with no superficial relevance. But his instinct was true; her corpulence did, in the most correct sense, aggravate the present qualities of her emotions and demeanour. And so, in varying forms, the thing was running all through the house--and soon would run all through the village. Mrs. Lisle--Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey! Portentous, horrible--and most exciting! It would run to London soon. Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey was not such a personage there--but still pretty well known. A good many people had been at that party where the Potentates had met. One of them had abdicated now and gone--well, perhaps only as far as Elba! All the air was full of her, all the voices speaking her name in unison. The sympathetic cousin had great difficulty in getting on the top of the defeated lover when Arthur entered Godfrey's room. And even anyhow--if one left out all the irony and all the complication--the errand was not an easy or a grateful one. If Godfrey had gone to bed sooner than witness a flirtation, what mightn't he do in face of an elopement? The invalid was sitting up in bed, supported by several pillows, smoking a cigarette and reading yesterday's "Times." The improvement in his temper, manifest from the moment when he took to his bed, seemed to have been progressive. He made Arthur welcome. "And I hope you've not come to say good-bye?" he added. Arthur had mentioned to him too the call to London and to work. "No, I'm going to stay on a few days more, if you can put me up. I say, Godfrey----" "Delighted to keep you--especially when I'm on my back. I hope to be up soon, though, very soon. Er--Wyse is staying on too, I suppose?" "He left this morning, early, by motor." "Did he? Really?" He smothered his relief, but it was unmistakable. "Rather sudden, wasn't it?" "Yes, it was sudden. The fact is----" "Why did he go? Is he coming back?" "I don't know--well, I mean, he didn't say anything to me. No, he won't be back."