"Couldn't," shortly corrected Molly. "There ain't no way to fall--no opening. They be biling up beautiful, mum." "And--was he never--never seen again since that night?" pursued Madame Guise, casting mechanically a glance on the steaming saucepan. "Never seen nor heard on," protested Molly emphatically. "His clothes and his portmanteau and all his other things have stayed on here; but he has never come back to claim 'em." Madame Guise put her hands on her pallid face, as if to hide the terror there. Molly, her work done, and about to depart, was sweeping the bits of stalks and herbs from the table into her clean check apron. "Does the voisinage know all this?" asked Madame Guise, looking up. "Is it talked of openly? May I speak of it to monsieur and madame en bas--to the host and hostess, I would say?" "Why bless you, mum, yes! There have been nothing else talked of in the place since. Nobody hardly comes in here but what begins upon it." Molly left with the last words. Madame Guise sat on, she knew not how long, her face buried in her hands, and the tisane was boiled too much. The little girl, soothed perhaps by the murmur of voices, had fallen fast asleep. By-and-by Mrs. Bent came up, to know when her guest would be ready for tea. "I am ready now," was the lady's answer, after attending to the tisane. "And I wish that you and your husband, madame, would allow me to take the meal with you this one evening," added Madame Guise, with a slight shiver, as they descended the dark staircase. "I feel lonely and fatigued, and in want of companionship." Mrs. Bent was gratified, rather than otherwise at the request. They descended; and she caused the tea-tray, already laid in their room, to be carried into the parlour. The same parlour, as the room above was the same bedroom, that had been occupied by the ill-fated Anthony Castlemaine. "I hope you are a little less tired than you were when you arrived, madam," said John Bent, bowing, as he with deprecation took his seat at last, and stirred his tea. "Thank you, I have been forgetting my fatigue in listening to the story of one Mr. Anthony Castlemaine's disappearance," replied Madams Guise, striving to speak with indifference. "The account is curious, and has interested me. Mollee thought you would give me the particulars." "Oh, he'll do that, madam," put in Mrs. Bent sharply. "There's nothing he likes better than talking of that. Tell it, John." John did as he was bid. But his account was in substance the same as Molly's. He could tell neither more nor less: some few additional small details perhaps, some trifling particulars; but of real information he could give none. The poor lady, hungering after a word of enlightenment that might tend to lessen her dread and horror, listened for it in vain.