"I said something about it. He told me he'd been up all night on a case some miles away, that he'd only left at daybreak to drive back, and that he felt all in. But it was something more than that, I feel certain, to have thrown him into the state he was in." "I shall ask him tonight," I said. "If he's keeping anything back----" "Ask him!" said Mary. "Ask him, and get the truth! You can tell him just what I said." I had promised to look in at the Sliefers' again, later in the evening, and instead of doing so on my way back, Mary proposed that I should walk across with her, after tea, while Lessing got some letters written. "I want some cream for supper," she said, "and I want to see Rebecca too. I meant to go this morning. If you don't mind the walk we'll take Leo along. He hasn't had a run today yet." She called the setter and he came bounding up, glad enough of the prospect of a walk. "Poor old Leo!" Mary said. "He doesn't get half enough exercise. We'll take the leash, Austin, if you don't mind. There's a collie at the farm and the two are sworn enemies. I always have to fasten him if I go there." I put the leash in my pocket and we set off through the woods by a short cut that brought us out eventually upon the cart-track near the old saw-mill. On the other side of this road the Sliefers' land began, and only a couple of pasture fields, with low snake-fences, separated us from the farm. Leo had dropped behind after we passed the mill, and as we stopped by the fence to wait for him we saw a woman coming along the path. She wore a faded check cotton dress and a sunbonnet that almost hid her face, and she was carrying a basket filled with chips, evidently gathered near the mill. As she drew near I caught a flash of very keen eyes, set in a dark wrinkled face, directed upon us in a glance that was by no means friendly. Mary stepped forward and spoke to her, and I saw her slip something into the old woman's hand. The gnarled fingers closed on it unwillingly; she muttered something and passed on. "Do you know her?" I asked. "It's old Mrs. Menning," Mary said. "Poor old soul! She's crotchety, but I can't help feeling sorry for her. Is it true they are sending her to the poorhouse?" "I've no idea. Old Paddy Nevill told me she'd moved her things up to some little empty shack near her old place. I suppose they'll let her stay there till something can be arranged." I watched the bent, dragging figure out of sight. As Paddy had said, she covered the ground fairly spryly, for all her feebleness of gait. It was my first acquaintance with this woman to whose personality Herrick had particularly drawn my attention the night before. If Lennox were right, she had played an almost incredibly cunning part throughout, even if her brain had not itself evolved the whole plot.