The matter troubled Miss Hallet. She knew not what to do, to whom to speak, or of whom to ask advice. Speaking to Jane herself went for nothing: for the girl invariably denied, with all the unconcern she could put on, that anything was amiss or that she was different from what she used to be. It was now that Miss Hallet felt her isolated position, and the reserve with which she had treated the village. Her own illness had left her somewhat less strong-minded than before, or she would never have spoken of it. One day, however, when Mrs. Bent came up to pay a social visit, and Jane had gone down the cliff on some necessary errand, Miss Hallet, who had been "tried" that morning by Jane's having an hysterical fit, condescended to speak of Harry Castlemaine in connection with her niece, and to ask Mrs. Bent whether she ever saw them together now. "Pretty nearly every other evening," was the plain and most unwelcome answer. Miss Hallet coughed, to cover a groan of censure. "Where do they walk to?" she asked. "Mostly under the high cliff towards the Limpets. It's lonely there at night--nobody to be met with, ever." "Do you walk there--that you should see them?" asked keen Miss Hallet. "To tell you the truth, I have gone there on purpose to see," was the landlady's unblushing answer. "I don't approve of it. It's very foolish of Jane." "Foolish; yes, very: but Jane would never behave lightly!" returned Miss Hallet, a blush of resentment on her thin cheeks. "I don't say she would: Jane ought to have better sense than that. But it is pretty nigh as bad to give rise to talk," added candid Mrs. Bent: "many a good name has been tarnished without worse cause. It's not nice news, either, to be carried up to Greylands' Rest." "Is it carried there, Mrs. Bent?" "Net yet, that I know of. But it will be one of these days. I should put a summary stop to it, Miss Hallet." "Yes, yes," said the unfortunate lady, smoothing her mittened hands together nervously, as she inwardly wondered how that was to be done, with Jane in her present temper. And, perplexed with her many difficulties, she began enlarging upon Jane's new and strange moods, even mentioning the locked drawer she had surprised Jane at, and openly wondering what she kept in it. "Love-letters," curtly observed discerning Mrs. Bent. "Love-letters!" ejaculated Miss Hallet, who had never had a love-letter in her life, and looked upon them as no better than slow poison. "There's not a doubt of it. His. I dare say he has got a lot of Jane's. I gave her a bit of my mind the day before yesterday, when she came to the inn to bring back the newspaper," added Mrs. Bent. "Gave it plainly, too." "And--how did Jane receive it?"