To my knowledge I’d never seen him before, and it gave me a start—me saying, surprised to myself, "Hullo! here’s another one?" He was a big, powerful chap, with a square, healthy looking face and wide shoulders on him like a prize fighter. He was dressed in a loose coat and knickerbockers and as he talked he had his hands spread out, one on each knee, great brown hands with hair on them. I was close enough to see that, but he was speaking so low and I was so scared that they’d see me and think I was spying, that I didn’t hear what he was saying. The only one that saw me was the horse. It looked up sudden with its ears pricked, staring surprised with its soft gentle eyes. I stole away like a robber, not making a speck of noise. All the joy I’d been taking in the walk under the colored leaves was gone. I felt kind of shriveled up inside—the way you feel when someone you love is sick. I couldn’t bear to think that Jack Reddy was giving his heart to a girl who’d meet another man out in the woods and listen to him so coy and yet so interested. As far as I can remember, that was a little over a month from the fatal day. All the rest of October and through the first part of November things went along quiet and peaceful. And then, suddenly, everything came together—quick like a blow. III For two days it had been raining, heavy straight rain. From my window at Galway’s I could see the fields round the village full of pools and zigzags of water as if they’d been covered with a shiny gray veil that was suddenly pulled off and had caught in the stubble and been torn to rags. Saturday morning the weather broke. But the sky was still overcast and the air had that sort of warm, muggy breathlessness that comes after rain. That was November the twentieth. It was eleven o’clock and I was sitting at the switchboard looking out at the streets, all puddles and ruts, when I got a call from the Dalzells’—a place near the Junction—for Mapleshade. Now you needn’t get preachy and tell me it’s against the rules to listen—suspension and maybe discharge. I know that better than most. Didn’t the roof over my head and the food in my mouth depend on me doing my work according to orders? But the fact is that at this time I was keyed up so high I’d got past being cautious. When a call came for Mapleshade I _listened_, listened hard, with all my ears. What did I expect to hear? I don’t know exactly. It might have been Jack Reddy and it might have been Sylvia—oh, never mind what it was—just say I was curious and let it go at that. So I lifted up the cam and took in the conversation. It was a woman’s voice—Mrs. Dalzell’s, I knew it well—and Dr. Fowler’s. Hers was trembly and excited: "Oh, Dr. Fowler, is that you? It’s Mrs. Dalzell, yes, near the Junction. My husband’s very sick. We’ve had Dr. Graham and he says it’s appendicitis and there ought to be an operation—now, as soon as possible. _Do_ you hear me?" Then Dr. Fowler, very calm and polite: