"What is it?" said the woman again when she came up to Maggie. But Maggie made no answer. They pushed past her and went into the room. Maggie followed them. She saw the room obscured by mist; she heard some whispering and fumbling, then a match was struck; there was a bead-like flare followed suddenly by the flaming of a candle. In the quick light the room was bright. Maggie saw her uncle hanging from some projection in the rough ceiling. A chair was overturned at his feet. His body was like a bag of old clothes, his big boots turning inwards towards one another. His face was a dull grey and seemed cut off from the rest of his body by the thick blue muffler that encircled his neck. He was grinning at her; the tip of his tongue protruded at her between his teeth. She noticed his hands that hung heavily like dead fish. After that she knew no more save that the sea seemed to rush in a great flood, with a sudden vindictive roar, into the room. CHAPTER IX SOUL OF PAUL Nothing so horrible had ever happened to Paul before, nothing ... He felt as though he had committed a murder; it was as though he expected arrest and started at every knock on the door. Nothing so horrible ... It was, of course, in all the Skeaton papers. At the inquest it appeared that Mathew Cardinal had imitated the signature of a prosperous City friend; had he not chosen his own way out he would have discovered the arduous delights of hard labour. But he had chosen suicide and not "while of unsound mind." Yes, the uncle of the Rector's wife ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's Uncle ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's Uncle! Sho discovered him, bumped right into him in the dark. What a queer story--like a novel. Oh, but she had always been queer--Trenchard had picked her up somewhere in a London slum; well, perhaps not a slum exactly but something very like it. Why did he marry her? Perhaps he had to. Who knows? These clergymen are sly dogs. Always the worst if the truth were known ... So it went on. For nine whole days (and nights) it was the only topic in Skeaton. Paul caught the fringe of it. He had never known very much about his fellow-beings. He had always taken the things that they said to him as the true things, when they smiled he had thought that they meant their smiles. And why not? ... since he always meant his. He had always been too lazy to dislike people, and his digestion had been too good and his ambition too slender to urge him towards spite and malice. He had believed that he was on excellent terms with all the world.