clearly understand she thought him one; and he set off again almost immediately to have another look for it. He did not come back this time till close on midnight, and he had not the courage to tell her of his failure. His mother did it for him. Beryl went away early the following morning, too indignant to shake hands with either Mrs. Dyer or her son. 'If Davy didn't actually take the reticule,' she wrote to me some days later, 'it was all owing to him--to his bothering me to see that rotten garden--that I lost it; but I firmly believe he has it. Ugly faces, you know, are indicative of ugly minds--of a bad kink somewhere.' "Of course the affair of the reticule soon became public property. It was advertised for in the local papers, and the woman in the post office told everybody that she remembered seeing it in Beryl's hand when she left the shop. 'Davy,' she said, 'was with Miss Denver at the time, and I particularly noticed that he walked very close to her and watched her in a peculiarly furtive manner.' "Now the villagers, with whom the Dyers had always been unpopular, were not slow in taking up the cue, and consequently Davy, now waylaid by armies of children calling him thief, and even beating him, never had a moment's peace. "At last he was found one morning in the mill-pond drowned, and it was generally believed that remorse for his sins had made him commit suicide. His mother alone thought otherwise. I did not see Beryl nor hear anything of her for at least two years after Davy's death, when to my surprise she drove up to the door one day with her usual pile of luggage. "'Who is it this time?' I said, after we had exchanged greetings. 'The duke again!' "'Oh dear no,' Beryl replied. 'I broke it off definitely with him long ago. He was too boring for words, always dangling after me and never letting me go out with anyone else. If he had been tolerably good-looking I might have stood it, but he wasn't. He was hopelessly plain. However, I made some use of him, and he certainly gave me good presents. I have been engaged several times since, and I've come now to ask your advice about the Earl of C----'s eldest son. Shall I marry him or not? Do you think he's worth it?' "I did not answer her at once, but let her ramble on, till she suddenly turned to me and said, 'Do you remember the last time I was here? Two years ago! You know I stayed at that delightful old mill house--the Gyp something, and lost my reticule. Well, I found it some time afterwards in my hat-box. I hadn't taken it out with me that day after all. And I could have sworn I had. Wasn't it funny?' "'Extraordinary, perhaps,' I remarked, with rather more severity in my voice than I had ever used to her before, 'but hardly funny.' And I was about to relate to her all that had occurred in the interim, when something checked me. After all, I thought, it would be just as well for this spoilt, heartless little London actress to go to the Gyp Mill and find out for herself.