Looking straight before him, as they resumed their walk, he told her; in brief words that seemed, as he jerked them out, to be pumped from him; that made no single coherent sentence, and yet were concise as a despatch. This in substance was Mr. Hanmer's report:-- They had remained on the terrace, seated, as she had left them-- Captain and Mrs. Harry, Miss Quiney and he. The Captain was talking. . . . A servant brought word that two ladies--Mr. Hanmer could not recall their names--had called from Boston and desired to see Mrs. Vyell. "Surely," protested Mrs. Harry, "they must mean Lady Vyell?" The servant was positive: Mrs. Captain Vyell had been the name. "They are anxious to pay their respects," suggested Miss Quiney. "Anxious indeed! Why we landed but a few hours since. They must have galloped." Miss Quiney was sent to offer them refreshment and discover their business. Miss Quiney goes off on her errand. Minutes elapse. After many minutes the servant reappears. "Miss Quiney requests Mrs. Harry's attendance." Mrs. Harry goes. "Women are queer cattle," says Captain Harry sententiously, and talks on. By-and-by the servant appears yet again. Mr. Hanmer is sent for. "Why, 'tis like a story I've read somewhere, about a family sent one by one to stop a tap running," says Captain Harry. "But I'll say this for the women--I'm always the last they bother." Following the servant, Mr. Hanmer--so runs his report--enters the great drawing-room to find Miss Quiney stretched on the sofa, her face buried in cushions, and Mrs. Harry standing erect and confronting two ladies of forbidding aspect. "In brief," concluded Mr. Hanmer, "she sent me for you." "To confront them with her? I wonder what their business can be. . . ." With a glance at his side face she added, "I think you have not told me all." "No," he confessed haltingly; "that's true enough. In--in fact Mrs. Harry first employed me to show them to the door." "And--on the way?" "Honoured madam--" "They said--what?--quoting whom?" "A Mr. Silk. But again--ma'am, I am awkward at lying. I cannot manage it." "I like you the better for it." "I did not believe--" "Yet you might have believed. . . . And suppose that it were true, sir?" He shook visibly. "I pray God to protect you," he managed to stammer. Her face was white, but she answered him steadily. "I believe you to be a good man. . . . I will go to them. Where is Dicky?" She glanced back along the alley. "Dicky will stand where I have told him to stand: for hours unless I release him." "Is that your naval code? And can a mere child stand by it so proudly? Oh," cried she, fixing on him a look he remembered all his days, "would to God I had been born a man!" Yet fearlessly as any man she entered the great drawing-room. Miss Quiney still lay collapsed on her sofa. Mrs. Harry bent over her, but faced about.