"Now," observed Madge to herself, as she watched him going down the road, "all that remains, is for us in due course to hear from you again--to some effect--and that, if you're the sort of blunderbuss I take you to be, will be never." Turning from the window, she looked about the room, speaking half in jest and half in earnest. "This is a delightful state of things--truly! It seems as if we couldn't have found a more undesirable habitation, if we had tried Petticoat Lane. Not the first burglar that's been in the place! And the house well known to the police--not to speak of a sinister reputation in all the country side! Charming! Clover Cottage seems to be an ideal place of residence for two lone, lorn young women. The abode of mystery, and, so far as I can make out, a sink of crime, one wonders if it still waits to become the scene of some ghastly murder to give to the situation its crowning touches. I shiver--or, at any rate, I ought to shiver--when I reflect on the horrors with which I may be, and probably am, surrounded!" Ella returned earlier than the day before, and, this time, she came alone. The question burst from her lips the instant she was in the house. "Well, has anything happened?" "Nothing--of importance. It's true the police have been, but as it appears that they've been here over and over again before, that's a trifle. There's been at least one previous burglar upon the premises, and it seems that the house has been known to the police--and to the whole neighbourhood--for years, in the most disreputable possible sense." Ella could but gasp. "Madge!" The statements which the officer had made were retailed, with comments and additions--and, it may be added, interpolations. Ella was more impressed even than Madge had been--being divided between concern and indignation. "To think that we should have been inveigled into taking such a place! We ought to claim damages from those scamps of agents who let it us without a word of warning. You can't think how I have been worrying about you the whole day long; the idea of our being together in the place is bad enough, but the idea of your being alone in it is worse. What that policeman has said, settles it. Jack may laugh if he likes, but my mind is made up that I won't stop a moment longer in the house than I can help; the notion of your being all those hours alone here would worry me into the grave if nothing else did--and so I shall tell him when he comes." Madge's manner was more equable. "He will laugh at you, you'll find; and, unless I'm in error, here he is to do it." As she spoke there was a vigorous knock at the front door. CHAPTER VI THE LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE "Go," said Ella, as she hastened from the room, "and open the door, while I go upstairs and take my hat off." Madge did as she was told. There were two persons at the door--Jack Martyn and another.