"I went this morning to the school where Miss Elsie Stennis teaches," said Miss Orrin, "and I gave her a message that her grandfather was ill and wishful to see her. Dr. Hector is a witness that such was Mr. Stennis's urgent desire. I merely executed it, and all that I know further is that Miss Stennis has not yet complied with that request." "Our Frankie saw teacher with you on the meadow pasture at nine this morning," interrupted a gaunt woman with the bent shoulders of the outdoor worker and a look of poverty on her face. "Then your Frankie lied!" retorted Miss Orrin sharply. And after this direct challenge it needed both Mr. Ablethorpe and Mr. De la Poer to restore order. But the fury of Frankie's mother contrasted so ill with Miss Orrin's glacial calm, that it seemed possible enough that "Frankie" had indeed invented the little circumstance to add to his importance, after hearing of the loss and disappearance of "teacher." "Moreover," said Miss Orrin, "since Mr. Stennis is too ill to have his bedchamber and house invaded in this way, in future Dr. Hector will arrange for special protection from the police at Longtown. And after this warning let any one cross the moat at their peril." There was no more to be done. Aphra Orrin had beaten us completely. The baffled tide ebbed back the way it came, and Deep Moat Grange was left alone once more with the secrets it had been successful in guarding in the teeth of a whole countryside in arms and aroused to a high pitch of curiosity. The two clergymen waited behind, but the sick man would have nothing to do with them, declaring his intention, if he must, of dying as a good Presbyterian. He was the most intractable of invalids, even threatening to break a bottle over Dr. Hector's head if, as he proposed, he should venture to bring with him from Longtown a minister of his own denomination. "Hobby Stennis is none so ill as that," he said stoutly, "if only I had my will in a safe place, and had seen the little lass, who is all my kith and kin, I would ask no more from doctor or minister in this world." "I will take charge of the will myself if no better may be," said Dr. Hector. And so, none saying him nay, he rode back to Longtown with the holograph in his breast pocket, jesting with two farmers riding that way as he went. Had he only known, a few sheets of a folio account book covered with close writing in the hand of Mr. Stennis was considerably more dangerous to carry about with him than the latest discovered high explosive!