His mind was still busy with the past when he reached home. Mrs. Chalk, a woman of imposing appearance, who sat by the window at needlework, looked up sharply at his entrance. Before she spoke he had a dim idea that she was excited about something. "I've got her," she said, triumphantly. "Oh!" said Mr. Chalk. "She didn't want to come at first," said Mrs. Chalk: "she'd half promised to go to Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris had heard of her through Harris, the grocer, and he only knew she was out of a place by accident. He----" Her words fell on deaf ears. Mr. Chalk, gazing through the window, heard without comprehending a long account of the capture of a new housemaid, which, slightly altered as to name and place, would have passed muster as an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a particularly sulky salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last, pulled up sharply. "You're not listening!" she cried. "Yes, I am; go on, my dear," said Mr. Chalk. "What did I say she left her last place for, then?" demanded the lady. Mr. Chalk started. He had been conscious of his wife's voice, and that was all. "You said you were not surprised at her leaving," he replied, slowly; "the only wonder to you was that a decent girl should have stayed there so long." Mrs. Chalk started and bit her lip, "Yes," she said, slowly. "Ye--es. Go on; anything else?" "You said the house wanted cleaning from top to bottom," said the painstaking Mr. Chalk. "Go on," said his wife, in a smothered voice. "What else did I say?" "Said you pitied the husband," continued Mr. Chalk, thoughtfully. Mrs. Chalk rose suddenly and stood over him. Mr. Chalk tried desperately to collect his faculties. "How dare you?" she gasped. "I've never said such things in my life. Never. And I said that she left because Mr. Wilson, her master, was dead and the family had gone to London. I've never been near the house; so how could I say such things?" Mr. Chalk remained silent. "What made you _think_ of such things?" persisted Mrs. Chalk. Mr. Chalk shook his head; no satisfactory reply was possible. "My thoughts were far away," he said, at last. His wife bridled and said, "Oh, indeed!" Mr. Chalk's mother, dead some ten years before, had taken a strange pride--possibly as a protest against her only son's appearance--in hinting darkly at a stormy and chequered past. Pressed for details she became more mysterious still, and, saying that "she knew what she knew," declined to be deprived of the knowledge under any consideration. She also informed her daughter-in-law that "what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve," and that it was better to "let bygones be bygones," usually winding up with the advice to the younger woman to keep her eye on Mr. Chalk without letting him see it. "Peckham Rye is a long way off, certainly," added the indignant Mrs. Chalk, after a pause. "It's a pity you haven't got something better to think of, at your time of life, too."