"And do you know if the ladies have afternoon engagements?" Louise thought they had none, because Lady Dashwood was to be at home to tea. That she knew for certain, and she added in a voice fraught with import: "I shall urge Madame to rest after lunch." "Humph! I see you look after her properly," said Mrs. Potten, beginning to write on her card with the pencil; "I thought she was looking very tired when I saw her this morning." "Tired!" exclaimed Louise; "Madame is always tired in Oxford." "Relaxing climate," said Mrs. Potten as she wrote. "And this house does not suit Madame," continued Louise, motionless at the door. "The drains wrong, perhaps," said Mrs. Potten, with absolute indifference. "I know nothing of drains, Madame," said Louise, "I speak of other things." "Sans doute il y a du 'dry rot,'" said Mrs. Potten, looking at what she had written. "Ah!" exclaimed Louise, clasping her hands, "Madame has heard; I did not know his name, but what matter? Ghosts are always ghosts, and my Lady Dashwood has never been the same since that night, never!" Mrs. Potten stared but she did not express surprise, she wanted to hear more without asking for more. "Madame knows that the ghost comes to bring bad news about the Warden!" "Bad news!" said Mrs. Potten, and she put her pencil back into her bag and wondered whether the news of the Warden's engagement had reached the servants' quarters. "A disaster," said Louise. "Always a disaster--to Monsieur the Warden. Madame understands?" Louise gazed at Mrs. Potten as if she hoped that that lady had information to give her. But Mrs. Potten had none. She was merely thinking deeply. "Well," she said, rising, "I suppose most old houses pretend to have ghosts. We have one at Potten End, but I have never seen it myself, and, as far as I know, it does no harm and no good. But Madame didn't see the ghost you speak of?" and here Mrs. Potten smiled a little satirically. "It was Miss Scott," said Louise, darkly. "Oh!" said Mrs. Potten, with a short laugh. "Oh, well!" and she came towards the maid with the card in her hand. "Now, will you be good enough to give this to Madame the moment that she returns and say that it is 'Urgent,' d'une importance extrème." "Well," said Mrs. Potten to herself, as she walked through the court and gained the street, "and I should think it _was_ a disaster for a quiet, respectable Warden of an Oxford college to marry a person of the Scott type." As to Louise, when she had closed the front door on Mrs. Potten's retreating figure, she gazed hard at the card in her hand. The writing was as follows:-- "Dear Lena, "Can Miss Scott come to see me this afternoon without fail? Very kindly allow her to come early. "M. P." It did not contain anything more.