As a matter of fact, Miss Vipen owed her cottage, her income, her very position in Chancton, to the mistress of the Priory. Her father had been land-agent to Madame Sampiero's father. The two women had been girls together, and when finally the arrangements had been made which provided for Miss Vipen's later life and for what she cared for so much more, the keeping up of her adequate position in the neighbourhood where she had spent her whole existence, her old friend had said to her: "I only ask one thing. I beg you, Martha, never to speak of me again, kindly or unkindly, in love or in anger!"--and Miss Vipen had faithfully kept her side of the bargain. Only two people in Chancton had the moral courage steadily to avoid her dangerous company. The one was Doctor McKirdy, who, as a young man, and when still a stranger to the place, had extracted from her a written apology for something she had said of him which identified him too closely for his taste with the physiologists who were then beginning to be much discussed. The other was General Kemp. Making one day sudden irruption into her sitting-room, he had overheard a remark made by her concerning his own daughter and Captain Laxton; at once he had turned on his heel, and, after giving his wife a short sketch of what would have happened to Miss Vipen had she worn breeches instead of petticoats, he had declared it to be his intention never willingly to meet her again. Malice, to be effective, however vulgar in its essence, should on the whole be refined in its expression. There were certain people, notably poor Mrs. Sampson, the rector's wife, to whom Miss Vipen felt she could say anything, sure of a fascinated, even if a fearful, listener. With others she was more careful, and to Mrs. Boringdon she had soon become a valuable ally, and a precious source of information. * * * * * This was the woman from whose company and conversation Oliver Boringdon, two days after the Halnakeham Castle ball, came straight down the village street to Chancton Grange. He had been to see Miss Vipen on a matter of business connected with a slight leakage in her roof, but the hawk-eyed old lady, as was her wont, had in a very few moments planted an envenomed dart in his mind and brain.