He refastened the envelope, pressing it down with his dirty thumb to make it adhere once more, and not much improving its appearance thereby. "He's one of your rare careless chaps," he muttered as he surveyed the letter; "_he_ won't stop t' examine if it's been opened before. What's insoide were hardly worth th' trouble of openin' it; but perhaps it's as well to know it too." Immediately after Stephen Hargraves had disappeared through the open window Aurora turned to leave the room by the door, intending to go in search of her husband. She was arrested on the threshold by Mrs. Powell, who was standing at the door, with the submissive and deferential patience of paid companionship depicted in her insipid face. "_Does_ Colonel Maddison dine here, my dear Mrs. Mellish?" she asked meekly; yet with a pensive earnestness which suggested that her life, or at any rate her peace of mind, depended upon the answer. "I am _so_ anxious to know, for of course it will make a difference with the fish,--and perhaps we ought to have some mulligatawny; or at any rate a dish of curry amongst the _entrées;_ for these elderly East-Indian officers are so----" "I don't know," answered Aurora, curtly. "Were you standing at the door long before I came out, Mrs. Powell?" "Oh, no," answered the ensign's widow, "not long. Did you not hear me knock?" Mrs. Powell would not have allowed herself to be betrayed into anything so vulgar as an abbreviation by the torments of the rack; and would have neatly rounded her periods while the awful wheel was stretching every muscle of her agonized frame, and the executioner waiting to give the _coup de grâce_. "Did you not hear me knock?" she asked. "No," said Aurora; "you didn't knock! Did you?" Mrs. Mellish made an alarming pause between the two sentences. "Oh, yes, too-wice," answered Mrs. Powell, with as much emphasis as was consistent with gentility upon the elongated word; "I knocked too-wice; but you seemed so very much preoccupied that----" "I didn't hear you," interrupted Aurora; "you should knock rather louder when you _want_ people to hear, Mrs. Powell. I--I came here to look for John, and I shall stop and put away his guns. Careless fellow!--he always leaves them lying about." "Shall I assist you, dear Mrs. Mellish?" "Oh, no, thank you." "But pray allow me--guns are _so_ interesting. Indeed, there is very little either in art or nature which, properly considered, is not----" "You had better find Mr. Mellish, and ascertain if the colonel _does_ dine here, I think, Mrs. Powell," interrupted Aurora, shutting the lids of the pistol-cases, and replacing them upon their accustomed shelves. "Oh, if you wish to be alone, certainly," said the ensign's widow, looking furtively at Aurora's face bending over the breech-loading revolvers, and then walking genteelly and noiselessly out of the room.