"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now, did or did _not_ a certain person walk in and surprise you at the Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes or no?" "No," Annesley breathed. "Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are lying than _he_. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front door?" "It--sounds like it. But--perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice--make such strange noises." "They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly. Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize door open between, as they are now. "No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine, though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he would drop in at the Archdeacon's----" "Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go upstairs! I must stop him--I mean, speak to him! I----" "You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could not loosen them. Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer. But her voice was like the voice of one who tries to scream in a nightmare. It was muffled; and though the two intervening doors were ajar--the door of Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and the baize door dividing the corridors old and new--her call did not reach even the real Mr. Smith. To be sure, he was slightly deaf, and had to use an electric apparatus if he went to the theatre or opera; still, Annesley hoped that her choked cry might arrest him, that he might stop and listen for it to come again, thus giving time for the man upstairs to change his quarters after the grating of the latchkey in its lock. "Wicked, wicked girl!" Mrs. Ellsworth was shrilling. "How dare you hurt my hand? Have you lost your _senses_? Out of my house you go to-morrow!"