Simmonds suggested that he might have found something that specially interested him in the other paper, somebody dead and leaving money, may be, or somebody mysteriously disappeared, or something--he looked as if he'd had a shock of some sort. But Mrs. Simmonds was inclined to think that he was most likely upset by the thought of his railway journey. She knew it was all _she_ could do to swallow a bit, if she were going anywhere, with all her packing on her mind, and very likely the gentleman was of the same way of feeling. As to a shock, he hadn't got any shock out of the paper, she knew. He might have had some bad news in the letters Miss Strange brought him, for he told her with his own lips that they were very important, and that was why she came with them herself. "You see, the old gentleman was out," said Mrs. Simmonds, "so I suppose she didn't know what to do." "I shouldn't think the old gentleman would be best pleased," said Simmonds. The good woman considered for a moment. "Well, I sha'n't tell him," she announced finally. Harding drove to the nearest station in a gig. The rain was not so heavy then, the downpour had become a persistent drizzle. Nevertheless the village looked drenched and dismal enough as he bade it good-bye, and swung round the corner of the churchyard wall, where the yellow weeds stood up in the crevices behind the slant grey veil, and the great black-plumaged yews let fall their heavy tears upon the graves. In another minute a clump of trees hid the square tower and the leaden roof, and Mitchelhurst was left behind. But the young man looked right and left at the wet hedgerows till they reached a spot where a ploughed field rose above the bank on one side, while on the other a deep bramble-grown ditch divided the road from the sodden meadows. He fixed his eyes on that. It was exactly a week that Wednesday since he first met Barbara Strange. Late that afternoon he walked into a dull room in a dull suburb of London, and a woman who stood in the window, snipping the dead fronds from a homesick-looking fern, turned to meet him. There was no mistaking the relationship. Allowing for the differences of sex and age, they were as like as they could possibly be, except that in every glance and gesture the woman showed a fuller and richer life than did the man. There was something of imperious grace in her movements which made him seem awkward, hesitating, and constrained. She suffered him to touch her cheek with his lips, but showed no inclination to speak first. "Back again, you see," he said, drawing a chair to the hearth-rug. "Yes. I should think you must be wet." "Damp, I suppose."