“No. How should I?” she replied innocently. “Jane--Mary--whatever you call the new one--said she had gone into Yorkshire for the night. What a funny thing for Aunt Poynder to do! What possessed her? Perhaps she has gone away for a cure, like me.” Mortimer here made an inarticulate sound and his wife was quick to interrupt him. “Oh, please don’t begin to question me! Don’t you see I am still rather nervous? Take me when you have got me, and be thankful. Are you not one little bit glad to see me?” “God, Phœbe, what a liar you are!” he exclaimed, making a step forward. “Really, Mortimer!” “Read this!” he said violently, taking a crumpled sheet of notepaper out of his breast coat pocket. “Read it, and then perhaps you’ll know where your aunt is--if you don’t know already, which of course you do!” Mrs. Elles took the note out of his hands. “Don’t, Mortimer, look at me as if you hated me!” she added deprecatingly. The address of the letter--The Rectory, Greta Bridge--was the first crowbar levelled at the fabric of the pose she had been keeping up so valiantly. Her knees shook under her. “Dear Sir,” (the letter ran) “Will you excuse a perfect stranger for writing to you, but I fancy you will perhaps care to hear what I have to tell you. A young lady, who bears the address to which I write engraved on her umbrella, is staying here at the inn of this village under circumstances which impel me, as the wife of the Vicar of this parish, to give you at least a hint of her whereabouts, so that you may exercise the powers of a guardian over her. The only other inmate of the ‘Heather Bell’ is a single gentleman of the name of Rivers. The young lady calls herself Frick, a name which is not borne out by the initials on her objects of personal use. I may mention that she and Mr. Rivers share the same sitting-room. “Yours faithfully, “Florence Popham.” Mrs. Elles raised her eyes, full of angry fire. The fighting instinct was aroused in her. “Silly meddlesome creature!” she said scornfully. “Why may I not stay where I like, and call myself what I like, and what is it to me or to you either who happens to be staying in the same inn?” “That’s all bluff! We’ll hear what your aunt has to say about that!” “My aunt! What on earth has she to do with it?” And again her accent was truly surprised and therefore convincing. “You’re a damn good actress, Phœbe!... By Jove! Here is your aunt!... Stay where you are!” He seized her wrist with some violence just as Mrs. Poynder flung open the door of the room and stood aghast at the sight of Mrs. Elles. Then she banged her reticule, a strong, black, noticeably shabby one, down on the table, and Mrs. Elles’s eyes fastened on it. “You got a bit start of me, Fibby!” she said grimly, “but no matter. The old woman will be a match for you before she’s done!” Mrs. Elles slid her wrist out of Mortimer’s grasp, which tightened disagreeably when he gathered her intention of escape.