On my part, however, I was not satisfied so easily and many more peaceful moments I would have had if I had never pried further as I did. After all, I only asked one question and that early the next morning. In the house next to ours a brick ell was built way out to the alleyway along half the yard. The kitchen windows looked out on the passage. There was a maid in that house,--a second girl, as they call them in this country,--and I knew she was a great person for staying up late, telling her own fortune with cards or reading a dream-book. She was hanging clothes in the early sun, with her red hair bobbing up and down above the sheets and napkins, when I stood on a chair and looked over the wall. "Busy early?" I said. "But I saw your light late last night. Did you by any chance see anybody come in through our gate?" "Only you," the stupid thing said. "At first I thought it was some other woman, because, begging your pardon, you looked thin. But it was after nine and I knew you'd not be having callers that late." My tongue grew so dry it was hard to move it from the roof of my mouth, and before I could put in a word she threw a handful of clothespins into the basket and looked up again. "When did you get a dog?" she asked. "I saw you had one with you." "Dog!" I cried. "Oh, yes, the dog. That's the Judge's new dog." I jumped down off the chair and looked up at the windows to be sure the Judge was not looking at me. "A woman!" I whispered. With a hundred thoughts I went across the garden, looking in the snow for a person's tracks. It had grown warmer, however. Water was dripping from the roof, and if there had been any story in the snow, it had thawed away. I walked along with my head down, thinking and wondering whether I would tell the Judge. Mrs. Welstoke used to say, "Silence, my dear, is the result of thinking. You might not suppose so, perhaps, but why tell anything without a reason? People find out the good or bad news soon enough without your help. If it's good, their appetite is the sharper for it, and if it's bad, they have had just so much longer in peace." I thought of these words and wondered, too, what use it would be to worry the master. If evil was to come, it would come. And then, at that moment, my eye lit on something that shone in a hollow of the snow. "A piece of jewelry!" I said to myself, stooping for it. My fingers never reached it in that attempt; instinct made them draw back as if the object had been of red-hot metal. But it was not of red-hot metal. It was of gold. It was a locket. It was the very locket and chain that had been taken from the neck of Monty Cranch's baby! "So!" I cried, starting back as if it had been a tarantula; "so it is you! Found at last!" CHAPTER V AGAIN THE MOVING FIGURE