"No, sir. At the door, yes; that's true enough; but I was not inside it. What happened was this: on Monday I had some business at a farmhouse near Munpler, and set out to walk over there early in the evening. In passing down the side road by No. 7, I saw the two maids at the top window. One of them--I think it was Jane Cross--called out to ask me in a joking kind of way whether I was about to pay them a visit; I answered, not then, but I would as I came back if they liked. Accordingly, in returning, I rang the bell. It was not answered, and I rang again with a like result. Upon that, I went straight home to my milk books, and did not stir out again, as my mother can prove. That is the truth, sir, on my oath; and the whole truth." "What time was this?" "I am not quite sure. It was getting dusk." "Did you see anything of the young women this second time?" "Not anything." "Or hear anything?--Any noise?" "None whatever. I supposed that they would not come to the door to me because it was late: I thought nothing else. I declare, sir, that this is all I know of the matter." There was a pause when he concluded. Knapp, the policeman, and another one standing by his side, peered at Owen from under their eyebrows, as if they did not put implicit faith in his words: and the coroner recalled Matilda Valentine. She readily confirmed the statement of his having passed along the side road, and Jane Cross's joking question to him. But she denied having heard him ring on his return, and said the door-bell had not rung at all that night. Which would seem to prove that Owen must have rung during the time she had gone out for the beer. So, you perceive, the inquest brought forth no more available light, and had to confess itself baffled. "A fine termination this is to our pleasure," cried the Squire, gloomily. "I don't like mysteries, Johnny. And of all the mysteries I have come across in my life, the greatest mystery is this at No. 7." THE MYSTERY AT NUMBER SEVEN II.--OWEN, THE MILKMAN It was a grand sea to-day: one of the grandest that we had seen at Saltwater. The waves were dancing and sparkling like silver; the blue of the sky was deeper than a painter's ultramarine. But to us, looking on it from Mrs. Blair's house in Seaboard Terrace, its brightness and beauty were dimmed. "For you see, Johnny," observed the Squire to me, his face and tone alike gloomy--outward things take their impress from the mind--"with that dreadful affair at the next door jaundicing one's thoughts, the sea might as well be grey as blue, and the sky lowering with thunder-clouds. I repeat that I don't like mysteries: they act on me like a fit of indigestion."