The Rector grunted anew. He never discussed one parishioner with another; and he hated gossip with a deadly hatred. "So touching to see his devotion to her—really quite beautiful! I am told that she has been everything to him since his poor wife's death— ten years ago, wasn't it? A great sufferer she must have been—and such a sweet woman. Everybody says so. And now he just leans on his dear niece. So touching, isn't it?" No reply. Grim silence. "Then, too, there is Mr. Hamilton Stirling—a most interesting man. So full of information. Really, it is a privilege to come across a mind like his. Do tell me—is it true that he is the heir to all this property—supposing, of course, that the Squire never marries again?" She rippled anew. "First-cousin once removed, isn't he?" "Yes," was the least that the Rector could say. Mrs. Brutt understood that she would get nothing out of him, and she resented the fact. Her eyes surveyed with veiled criticism his ungainly figure, broad and heavy in make, thrown as a blur against a background of dainty colouring. He wore a rough workaday apron, suggestive of carpentering, over an ancient coat; both being, under supposition, never seen outside his shed. But when pressed for time, he would steal across for a word with his friend the carpenter; and more than once Mrs. Brutt had captured him en route in this unclerical guise. He had begun ruefully to see his own lost liberty, now that a talkative lady, with leisure for everybody's concerns, had chosen to plant herself within a stone's throw of the Rectory back-garden gate. Hitherto the back lane had been little frequented, and he could do as he chose, with small fear of detection. Though Lynnbrooke had become a town, its growth had been mainly towards other points of the compass, leaving the old parish church and the original village almost untouched. But Mrs. Brutt, coming for a week's change to the Inn, took a fancy to a couple of low-rented cottages, standing empty, and decided to make them her home. She had them transformed into a cosy dwelling, sent for her furniture, and settled down therein, with much flourish of trumpets. For a while she was too busy to give heed to aught beyond the process of settling in. That ended, she found herself with superabundant time at her disposal, and during the last two months her presence had been in the Rector's eyes a standing grievance. He never could pass down the lane without a risk of being waylaid. Whatever else Mrs. Brutt might be doing, she seemed to have one eye permanently glued to her front window.