I watched her go along the paths and down the steps from one terrace to another, until the laurels hid her altogether; and into this mere imagining of a moment came a hint of something slightly disagreeable, for which my mind, search as it would, found no explanation at all. I remembered then certain other little things. They dropped into the picture of their own accord. In a mind not deliberately hunting for clues, pieces of a puzzle sometimes come together in this way, bringing revelation, so that for a second there flashed across me, vanishing instantly again before I could consider it, a large, distressing thought that I can only describe vaguely as a Shadow. Dark and ugly, oppressive certainly it might be described, with something torn and dreadful about the edges that suggested pain and strife and terror. The interior of a prison with two rows of occupied condemned cells, seen years ago in New York, sprang to memory after it--the connection between the two impossible to surmise even. But the ‘certain other little things’ mentioned above were these: that Mrs. Franklyn, in last night’s dinner talk, had always referred to ‘this house,’ but never called it ‘home’; and had emphasised unnecessarily, for a well-bred woman, our ‘great kindness’ in coming down to stay so long with her. Another time, in answer to my futile compliment about the ‘stately rooms,’ she said quietly, ‘It is an enormous house for so small a party; but I stay here very little, and only till I get it straight again.’ The three of us were going up the great staircase to bed as this was said, and, not knowing quite her meaning, I dropped the subject. It edged delicate ground, I felt. Frances added no word of her own. It now occurred to me abruptly that ‘stay’ was the word made use of, when ‘live’ would have been more natural. How insignificant to recall! Yet why did they suggest themselves just at this moment?... And, on going to Frances’s room to make sure she was not nervous or lonely, I realised abruptly, that Mrs. Franklyn, of course, had talked with _her_ in a confidential sense that I, as a mere visiting brother, could not share. Frances had told me nothing. I might easily have wormed it out of her, had I not felt that for us to discuss further our hostess and her house merely because we were under the roof together, was not quite nice or loyal. ‘I’ll call you, Bill, if I’m scared,’ she had laughed as we parted, my room being just across the big corridor from her own. I had fallen asleep, thinking what in the world was meant by ‘getting it straight again.’