He had heard of the death on the morning after it occurred. John Broad, an inarticulate, secretive fellow, had come to the Rectory in quest of the Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returned home, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in the States; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemed ill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys had given up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late in coming downstairs the following morning. He had had to go to his work, and when he came back in the evening he found her in great pain and unable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, and had locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door and had found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himself and his boys since her arrival. But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street he had in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing the report of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course was well aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to the cottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, had found her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought her excited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey," he had said to the Coroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look after her, but she refused." In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given close attention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of his conversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. The medical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced brain disease, fatally aggravated by the journey. Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector had communicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden death to two other persons in the village. He still thought with infinite concern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurried note telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his own impressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her too much to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burden of a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all his thoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her in Barron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had been singularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other, outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that was sufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit. Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in the Cathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynell had no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emerged from its front door.