"Well, Harry, I must leave you to your investigation, if I am to have a walk this afternoon," concluded Mrs. Chandos. She went out and turned down the broad walk. Lizzy resumed her work in the dining-room, I and Mr. Dexter went back to the oak-parlour and stood at the window: and then I became aware that Mrs. Penn had lingered in the portico, talking with Mr. Chandos. "Until recently I believed we had the most trustworthy set of servants that it is possible for any family to have," he was saying. "What can there be in my letters that should interest them?" "Nay," said Mrs. Penn, "I think it is the greater wonder what there should be in mine. I am a stranger to your servants: my affairs cannot be supposed to concern any one of them." "It is my habit to leave letters on the table every day. They have never been touched or tampered with, so far as I know, until this afternoon." "You cannot be sure of that. But what shall you do in the matter now?" "I don't know what to do; it is the sort of thing that causes me to feel at a nonplus. Were I to have an officer in the house to watch, as you suggest, it might prove useless." "Have you a suspicion of any one in particular?" she abruptly asked. And by this time Mr. Dexter had grown interested in the conversation, and was listening as closely as I. "Not the slightest. Neither can you have, I suppose." Mrs. Penn was silent. "Have you?" repeated he, thinking her manner peculiar. "I would rather not answer the question, Mr. Chandos; because it would inevitably be followed by another." "Which is equivalent to admitting that your suspicions are directed to some one in particular," he returned, with awakened interest. "Why should you object to avow it?" "Well, it is so," she replied. "I do think that all the circumstances—taking one loss, one disagreeable event with another—do tend to point suspicion to a certain quarter. But I may be wrong." "To whom?" he asked. "That is just the question that I knew would follow," returned Mrs. Penn, "and I must decline to answer it. No, Mr. Chandos; you possess the same facilities for observing and judging that I do: in fact, greater ones: and if you cannot draw your own deductions, I certainly will not help you to them. I might be wrong, you know." "You must allude to an inmate of Chandos?" "I should deem it impossible that any but an inmate of Chandos could play these tricks. Where would be the opportunity?" "Mrs. Penn, if you possess any clue; nay, if you think you have any well-founded cause of suspicion, you ought to impart it to me," he gravely said. "Were I _sure_ that my suspicions were correct, I would do so; but, as I say, they may be mistaken. Forgive me, if I hint that perhaps your own eyes are shut closer than they need be." She hastened away, leaving the impression of her mysterious words behind. I wondered very much if she alluded to Lizzy Dene.