Miss King was mollified by the apology. She looked up from her papers and smiled. 

 "How did you find me out?" she asked. 

 "By your picture in the papers," he said.  "If you'll allow me to say so, it's a particularly good likeness and well reproduced. Of course, in your case, they'd take particular care not to print the usual kind of smudge." 

 Miss King was strongly inclined to ask for the papers. Her portrait had, she knew, appeared in the Illustrated London News and in two literary journals. She did not know that it had been reproduced in the daily press. The news excited and pleased her greatly. She had a short struggle with herself, in which self-respect triumphed. She did not ask for the papers, but assumed an air of bored indifference. 

 "They're always publishing my photograph," she said.  "I can't imagine why they do it." 

 "I quite understand now," said Meldon, "why you're going down to Ballymoy. You couldn't go to a better place for privacy and quiet; complete quiet. I'm sure you want it." 

 "Yes," said Miss King.  "I feel that I do. Now that you know who I am, you will understand. I chose Ballymoy because it seemed so very remote from everywhere." 

 She did not think it necessary to mention that she wanted to study the Irish character. Now that Meldon was talking in an interesting way she felt inclined to encourage him to reveal himself. 

 "Quite right. It is. I don't know a remoter place. Nobody will know you there, and if anybody guesses, I'll make it my business to put them off the scent at once. But there'll be no necessity for that. There isn't a man in the place will connect Miss King with the other lady. All the same, I don't think I'd stop too long at Doyle's hotel if I were you. Doyle is frightfully curious about people." 

 "I'm not stopping there," said Miss King.  "I have taken a house." 

 "What house? I know Ballymoy pretty well, and there isn't a house in it you could take furnished, except the place that belonged to old Sir Giles Buckley." 

 "I've taken that for two months," said Miss King. 

 Meldon whistled softly. He was surprised. Ballymoy House, even if let at a low rent, is an expensive place to live in. 

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