I had anticipated some difficulty in gaining admission to a country inn at such an hour, but as I climbed the hill I was surprised to see it still open and alight; and a glance at my watch deepened my surprise into astonishment. It was not yet midnight, and I had felt that it was at least two or three in the morning. So here was another contrast to add to the sense of unreality; and I entered the low-ceiled and dingy little office feeling like Tennyson's Prince returning from a fight with shadows. My room was cool and pleasant enough, but sleep and excitement had evaporated my drowsiness and I lay thinking in reminiscent circles, trying in vain to puzzle out some theory that would fit the circumstances of the night. The more I reviewed details, the more they seemed to fly apart from any reasonable association, charged as they were with one mysterious electricity. If some accident or sudden trouble had befallen the house, the nocturnal alarm[Pg 43] would be motivated; but what motive would that furnish for driving out the guest? Some unwitting provocation of my own (though I could imagine nothing of the sort) might have made my further presence unbearable; but what of the anxious bustle, the hasty conferences, the errands of the man we had met at the gate? And who was he, by the way, that he should have a latch-key and the airs of intimacy, without being, from what I had observed, an inmate of the house? The fear of infectious disease was the only thing that I could imagine that would explain the immediacy of my expulsion. But if I was the bearer of a plague, why had Lady been allowed to talk with me in the hall? Or if one of themselves had been stricken, why had she denied me for all time, or indeed made any mystery of the matter? Then I remembered her silences during the day, the ring, hidden in her breast, and her hesitation and doubt over asking me to stay the night. Whatever the trouble was, it had cast its shadow before: and I could not rid my mind of the conviction that all these matters must be fitted in, that they must all ultimately find their places in the explanation. At any rate, an explanation was due me, and I meant to have it. Either there had been some foolish mistake[Pg 44] or I had been treated outrageously. It was not curiosity, I told myself; the sorrows or the skeletons of this family were no business of mine; but I would know by what right they had ejected me. [Pg 43] [Pg 44] Over the telephone next morning, Mr. Tabor was ominously agreeable. "Certainly," he said. "You have a perfect right to the reason. When you have it, I think you will
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