"Ask Joseph Striver then," I replied, disengaging myself, "he knows all that I know, and more," I ended significantly. "Really and truly. Oh, I must tell Lucinda," and Miss Destiny vanished into the back room crying for her handmaid. Miss Monk seized the opportunity to open the front door and slip out, raising her eyebrows at me meanwhile. I took the hint at once. We walked down the meandering path between the weeds, and out on to the high road. Miss Monk kept silence for some distance, but I was so taken up with admiring her face, and was so delighted to be in her presence, that I did not mind her lack of speech. With compressed lips she stared straight in front of her, then spoke abruptly. "You seem to know a great deal about our family affairs, Mr. Vance." "Nothing more than has to do with the murder of Mrs. Caldershaw," I replied, quietly, "and I am so mixed up in that----" "Yes! yes!" she interrupted impatiently. "I understand so far. But my aunt has been talking to you." "Well, yes and no. I have not gathered much information from Miss Destiny." "Why should you wish to gather any information at all?" asked the girl with some sharpness. "My dear young lady. This murder interests me, and I wish to learn the truth. Naturally I seek for information." "Oh! And you have come here to question my aunt." "No, indeed. I don't see what she can tell me." "She can tell you nothing," said Miss Monk, with decision, "my aunt is not quite sane, as you can easily see. She has a moderately good income, yet prefers to live in that miserable place, which you"--she was sarcastic here--"called comfortable, Mr. Vance." "I wished to put Miss Destiny in a good humor," said I uneasily. "Why?" She was so very direct that I nearly came out with the truth. But it was absurd, on the face of it, to confess a crazy love for one I had known only half an hour: she would take so sudden a declaration as an insult. I therefore held my peace and fenced. "Miss Destiny, from what she said at Mootley, seems to know something about that glass eye, which was stolen from Mrs. Caldershaw's head when she was dead. I wish to learn all about it, so as to discover why the eye was stolen and the woman murdered." "Then you _did_ come here to question my aunt, in spite of your denial?" "Well, if I must confess it, I came to ask about the glass eye." Miss Monk walked on in silence, and then again spoke abruptly. "You should be honest with me, Mr. Vance." "I am honest." "Pardon me, you are not, since you said that you did not see what my aunt could tell you." And she looked like an offended goddess. This was brutally true: I had equivocated. "I throw myself on your mercy." She turned a pair of surprised eyes in my direction. "Why on mine?" "I appear to have offended you," I hesitated. "What does that matter? we are strangers." "I wish we were not," said my rash tongue, and Miss Monk stopped.