"Oh," said Leo wearily. "That will do; and don't come to tidy up my room again without asking leave." "No, miss," said Dally, retreating and going back to her own room, where she threw her housemaid's utensils on the bed, and took out and read the address on the envelope, "Telacot's Hotel, Craven Street, Strand." "Don't you be afraid, miss," she muttered, "I won't tidy up your room again. Oh, what treachery there is in this world! But wait, my dear, and you shall see!" She replaced the envelope, and stood thinking for a few moments before coming to a decision, and then-- "I haven't been there dozens of time for gran'fa for nothing," she said, half aloud. "I know, and I will. "But suppose-- "He wouldn't," she said, after a pause. "They say he never comes out of his room except at night--I will." Five minutes after she was going down the garden ostensibly to pick that bunch of parsley, and to obtain it she went to the very bottom of the kitchen garden, and thence into the meadows, through which she almost ran till she reached the bottom of the Manor House grounds, and then, knowing the place as she had from childhood, she easily made her way, unseen, to the surgery, to be found by North. Dally returned triumphantly, but she did not take the brandy to her grandfather, but deposited it in her box in the bedroom before going about her work as calmly as if she had nothing more important in her mind than dusters and brooms, and the keeping tidy of the portions of the Rectory within her province. But nothing missed her piercing little eyes, which seemed to glitter as the various matters occurred, and in the intervals she packed a few necessaries in a large reticule bag, which she hung over the iron knob of her bedstead in company with her jacket and hat. No servant could have been more attentive, or apparently innocent-looking as she stared at Joe Chegg, who, after helping Salis to bear North into the drawing-room, was relegated to the kitchen to be refreshed. Joe stared hard at her with an indignant frown, as he slowly ground up masses of bread and cheese, and washed them down with copious draughts of ale. But Joe's frowns had no effect upon Dally, and her aspect was simplicity itself, as, after a time, he took to shaking his head at her solemnly, following up each shake of the head with a sigh, and then apparently easing his sufferings by an angry bite at the bread. Each time Joe looked and frowned, Dally replied with a simple, innocent maiden's round-eyed, wondering gaze, which seemed to ask why he did not speak and say what he had to say.