Robert looked after him thoughtfully before turning the key in the lock.

“Seems to ’ave somethin’ on ’is mind,” he mused. “Reckon ’is missis is as aggravating as most.”

With which he turned the key in the rusty lock viciously, and extinguished the lights and left.

The Rev. Walter Errol on entering the vicarage drawing-room found John Musgrave already there, talking with his wife. Mrs Errol, a pretty, delicate looking woman, who, while she made an excellent wife and mother, was none the less a dead failure in the parish, according to the opinion of the local helpers, looked round brightly as her husband entered the room, and remarked:

“Mr Musgrave has just been telling me that some friends of his—”

“Acquaintances,” John Musgrave interposed gravely.

“Some people he knows,” Mrs Errol substituted, “have taken the Hall. I’m so glad. It is such a pity to have a place like that standing empty.”

The vicar looked pleased.

“Who are they, John?” he asked.

Mr Musgrave gazed thoughtfully into the fire. From the concentration of his look it would seem as though he found there the record of the family under discussion.

“The man,” he said slowly, “is a connection of Charlie Sommers. Belle wrote to me that they had taken the Hall. She wants me to be civil to them. The expression is hers. His name is Chadwick. I met him at Charlie’s place last year. He made his money in Ceylon, I understand, in rubber, or cocoa, or something of that sort. His wife is—modern.” He pursed his lips, and looked up suddenly. “That expression also emanates from Belle. I don’t think I like it very much. There are no children.”

“The result of her modernity, possibly,” observed the vicar.

John Musgrave’s air was faintly disapproving. He did not appreciate the levity of some of Walter Errol’s remarks.

“I am not much of a judge of women,” he added seriously, “but from the little I saw of her I think she will be—a misfit in Moresby.”

Mrs Errol laughed.

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