The man threw open a door and announced: “Miss Pembury, Mrs. Hawkes,” and Rhoda entered. The man went away, and Rhoda heard an exclamation from the grey-haired woman in spectacles who was drawing a cover over a little table in the pretty sitting-room. “Why, it’s Miss Rhoda!” cried the grey-haired woman. The visitor exclaimed in her turn. “Bessie!” cried she. Neither woman could restrain her tears. “I’m housekeeper here now,” said Bessie, wiping her eyes. “But, oh, Miss Pembury, to think Sir Robert shouldn’t know you! And to think of your turning up here, after all this time, and us wanting you so bad ten years ago!” “What do you mean?” asked Rhoda, trembling. “Let me get your rooms ready, and get rid of the maid, who is in the next room and who will be in here in a minute, and then I’ll tell you everything,” said Mrs. Hawkes. And within five minutes, the two rooms having been got ready, and the maid dismissed in search of tea and sandwiches for Miss Pembury, the two old friends sat down in the window-seat together, and the housekeeper began her story. CHAPTER IV. RHODA RETURNS TO MILL-HOUSE “Ah, Miss Pembury, there’s been a many changes since the night when you ran away from here!” she said, as she sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “But why did you go so quick and so quiet? And why didn’t you come forward when the inquest was held?” “I--I went away because I’d displeased Sir Robert,” said Rhoda. “So that I couldn’t bear to meet him again. And as for the inquest, if you mean that on the poor butler, I never heard anything about it till long after it was over. I fell ill, you know, and they wouldn’t let me know anything.” Mrs. Hawkes nodded. “I know that was what they said, but we all thought that it was only an excuse, and that the truth was you didn’t want to come forward, because you knew too much.” “Too much!” faltered Rhoda. “Yes. By the time you were missed, and by what we heard of your arriving at the hotel where you stayed the night, we thought as how you couldn’t but have heard or seen something of the murderer of poor Langton.” Rhoda trembled at the recollection. “Who was the murderer?” she asked in a whisper. The housekeeper shook her head. “Nobody knows from that day to this,” she answered. “The inquest was held, after being put off, and they brought it in ‘by some person unknown.’ But people talked, and it was very unpleasant for us all.” “What did they say?” asked Rhoda hoarsely. The housekeeper closed the window, and went to the door, looked out and came back again. “These aren’t things one likes to talk about, even now,” she said. “Of course the thing was really clear enough. It was a thief tried to rob the house, did get in a little way, and poor Langford went down and struggled with him and got killed.” “How was he killed?” asked Rhoda.