Roger Upjohn did not need to speak, hardly to make a gesture; his expression was so eloquent. She thanked him as if he had answered in words, adding with an air of gentle reserve: “Providence assists us in this matter. I am invited to Beverly next week to attend a wedding. I was intending to stay two days, but I will make it three and spend the extra one with you.” “What are your requirements, Miss Strange? I presume you have some.” Violet turned from the imposing portrait of Mr. Upjohn which she had been gravely contemplating, and met the troubled eye of her young host with an enigmatical flash of her own. But she made no answer in words. Instead, she lifted her right hand and ran one slender finger thoughtfully up the casing of the door near which they stood till it struck a nick in the old mahogany almost on a level with her head. “Is your son Roger old enough to reach so far?” she asked with another short look at him as she let her finger rest where it had struck the roughened wood. “I thought he was a little fellow.” “He is. That cut was made by--by my wife; a sample of her capricious willfulness. She wished to leave a record of herself in the substance of our house as well as in our lives. That nick marks her height. She laughed when she made it. ‘Till the walls cave in or burn,’ is what she said. And I thought her laugh and smile captivating.” Cutting short his own laugh which was much too sardonic for a lady’s ears, he made a move as if to lead the way into another portion of the room. But Violet failed to notice this, and lingering in quiet contemplation of this suggestive little nick,--the only blemish in a room of ancient colonial magnificence,--she thoughtfully remarked: “Then she was a small woman?” adding with seeming irrelevance--“like myself.” Roger winced. Something in the suggestion hurt him, and in the nod he gave there was an air of coldness which under ordinary circumstances would have deterred her from pursuing this subject further. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and she allowed herself to say: “Was she so very different from me,--in figure, I mean?” “No. Why do you ask? Shall we not join your brother on the terrace?” “Not till I have answered the question you put me a moment ago. You wished to know my requirements. One of the most important you have already fulfilled. You have given your servants a half-holiday and by so doing ensured to us full liberty of action. What else I need in the attempt I propose to make, you will find listed in this memorandum.” And taking a slip of paper from her bag, she offered it to him with a hand, the trembling of which he would have noted had he been freer in mind. As he read, she watched him, her fingers nervously clutching her throat.