Her taste for shopping had evaporated, and clutching her parcel she walked rapidly homeward. An occasional glance at her companion did not quite satisfy her that he was keeping his sense of humour under proper control. There was a twitching of his lips which might, she felt, in a little time become contagious. She averted her head. “That’s all right,” said Mr. Vyner, with a sigh of relief. “I was half afraid that I had offended you.” CHAPTER VII TO the great relief of Mr. Truefitt’s imagination, his sister suddenly ceased from all comment upon the irregularity of his hours. Unprepared, by the suddenness of the change, he recited mechanically, for the first day or two, the reasons he had invented for his lateness, but their reception was of so chilling a nature that his voice was scarcely audible at the finish. Indeed, when he came home one evening with a perfectly true story of a seaman stabbed down by the harbour, Mrs. Chinnery yawned three times during the narration, and Captain Trimblett shook his head at him. “True or not,” said the latter, after Mrs. Chinnery had left the room, “it doesn’t matter. It isn’t worth while explaining when explanations are not asked for.” “Do you think she knows?” inquired Mr. Truefitt, with bated voice. “She knows something,” replied the captain. “I _believe_ she knows all about it, else she wouldn’t keep so quiet. Why not tell her straight out? Tell her when she comes in, and get it over. She’s got to know some day.” “Poor Susan!” said Mr. Truefitt, with feeling. “I’m afraid she’ll feel it. It’s not nice to have to leave home to make room for somebody else. And she won’t stay in it with another woman, I’m certain.” “Here she comes,” said the captain, getting up. “I’ll go out for a little stroll, and when I come back I shall expect to find you’ve made a clean breast of it.” Mr. Truefitt put out a hand as though to detain him, and then, thinking better of it, nodded at him with an air of great resolution, and puffed furiously at his pipe. Under cover of clouds of smoke he prepared for the encounter. Closing the door gently behind him, the captain, after a moment’s indecision, drifted down the road. A shower of rain had brought out sweet odours from the hedgerow opposite, and a touch of salt freshened the breeze that blew up the river. Most of the inhabitants of the Vale were in bed, and the wet road was lonely under the stars. He walked as far as a little bridge spanning a brook that ran into the river, and seating himself on the low parapet smoked thoughtfully. His mind went back to his own marriage many years before, and to his children, whom he had placed, on his wife’s death, with a second cousin in London. An unusual feeling of loneliness possessed him. He smoked a second pipe and then, knocking the ashes out on the bridge, walked slowly homeward. Mr. Truefitt, who was sitting alone, looked up as he entered and smiled vaguely.