In the rectory at Great Bradley, Lady Constance Dex arose from a sleepless night to confront her placid brother at the breakfast table. The Reverend Jeremiah Bangley, a stout and easy man, who spent as much of his time in London as in his rectory, was frankly nonplussed by the apparition. He was one of those men, common enough, who accept the most extraordinary happenings as being part of life's normal round. An earthquake in Little Bradley which swallowed up his church and the major portion of his congregation would not have interested him any more than the budding of the trees, or a sudden arrival of flower life in his big walled garden. Now, however, he was obviously astonished. "What brings you to breakfast, Constance?" he asked. "I have not seen you at this table for many years." "I could not sleep," she said, as she helped herself at the sideboard to a crisp morsel of bacon. "I think I will take my writing pad to Moor Cottage." He pursed his lips, this easy going rector of Little Bradley. "I have always thought," he said, "that Moor Cottage was not the most desirable gift the late Mr. Farrington could have made to you." He paused, to allow her a rejoinder, but as she made no reply, he went on: "It is isolated, standing on the edge of the moor, away from the ordinary track of people. I am always scared, my dear Constance, that one of these days you will have some wretched tramp, or a person of the criminal classes, causing you a great deal of distress and no little inconvenience." There was much of truth in what he said. Moor Cottage, a pretty little one-storied dwelling, had been built by the owner of the Secret House at the same time that the house itself had been erected. It was intended, so the builder said, to serve the purpose of a summer house, and certainly it offered seclusion, for it was placed on the edge of the moor, approached by a by-road which was scarcely ever traversed, since Bradley mines had been worked out and abandoned. Many years ago when the earth beneath the moor had been tunnelled left and right by the seekers after tin and lead, Moor Cottage might have stood in the centre of a hive of industry. The ramshackle remains of the miners' cottage were to be seen on the other side of the hill; the broken and deserted headgear of the pit, and the discoloured chimney of the old power house were still visible a quarter of a mile from the cottage. It suited the owner of the Secret House, however, to have this little cottage erected, though it was nearly two miles from the Secret House, and he had spared neither expense nor trouble in preparing a handsome interior.