"Major Foxmaster, suh," began Bosler, "I--er--I kinder wanted to say somethin' to you privatelike." He halted lamely. Before the daunting focus of those frigid blue eyes his speech, carefully rehearsed beforehand, was slipping away from him. "Except for ourselves, there is no one within hearing," stated the Major. "Kindly proceed--if you will be so good." "Well, suh," faltered Bosler, fumbling his words out--"well, suh, Major Foxmaster, it's this-a-way: I've been--been a-thinkin' it over; and if this here lady--this woman that wears black all the time--the one that's moved into the old Gresham place acrost the street--if she pesters you any by follerin' you round every wheres, the way she does--I thought I'd be very glad--if you said the word--to warn her to quit it, else I'd--I'd have to take steps agin her by law or somethin'. And so--and so----" He stopped altogether. He had been chilled at the moment of his entrance; now he was frozen mentally to below the zero point. The Major spoke, and his syllables battered on Joel Bosler's unprotected head like hailstones. "Have you ever observed that the person to whom you refer has spoken to me?" he demanded. "No, suh; but----" "Or ever molested me in any way?" "Oh, no, suh; but, you see----" "Have you ever observed that I spoke to her?" "No, suh; but----" "Have you any reason for believing, of your own knowledge, that she knows me?" "Well, suh, I----" "Or that I am acquainted with her?" "Well, I----" "Then, sir, since she is minding her own business and I am minding my own business, I suggest that you take pattern by such examples and cultivate the habit of minding your own business. Kindly do not address me hereafter upon this subject--or any other. I find your conversation singularly unattractive. Good day, sir!" Policeman Joel Bosler had no recollection afterward of having withdrawn himself. He presently found himself downstairs in the lobby, and, a little later on, outside the hotel, upon his regular beat. How he got there or how long it took him to get there he could not, with any degree of certainty, say. Presently, though, he saw the Major issue forth from the Gaunt House door. And as the Major's foot descended upon the first step of the flight leading down to the street level, the gate of the old Gresham place across the way clicked, and here came the cloaked, veiled woman, floating noiselessly across the road to follow him. Joel Bosler, still in a state of intellectual numbness, watched them as they passed down the street--the Major striding on ahead, the gliding woman ten paces behind him. He had witnessed the same sight perhaps thirty times before. In days to come he was to witness it hundreds of times more; but always he watched it and never grew weary of watching it. Nor did the eyes of the rest of the town weary of watching it. And so the thing went on. * * * * *