think? Isn't it enough to turn one's hair gray?"

"It is a puzzling situation, certainly," said Armathwaite, quickly alive to the fact that, in Whittaker's presence, at any rate, the cousinship had been dropped.

"What is?" demanded Whittaker. "Not much to make a fuss about in searching for a book, is there?"

"No. But suppose I tell you that people here declare my father is dead, that he committed suicide two years ago, that he is buried in a neighboring cemetery, that his ghost is seen o' nights in our own house—what would you say then, Percy?"

"I'd say that the inhabitants are well suited to their country, and the sooner you and I are away from both, the better for the pair of us."

Meg crumpled up the letter in one hand, and hauled Whittaker to his feet with the other.

"Come on," she said emphatically. "If you hear the whole story now you'll collapse. I'm glad you've arrived, though I thought at first you were adding to my worries. You can help in clearing up a mystery. Now, don't interrupt, but listen! I'm going to give you a plain, straightforward version of events which sound like the maddest sort of nonsense. You wouldn't believe a word I'm telling you if Mr. Armathwaite wasn't present. But he will vouch for every syllable, and, when I've finished, you'll agree that when I said we would leave here, 'to-morrow, perhaps,' I might just as well have substituted 'next week' or 'next month' for 'to-morrow.' Isn't that so, Mr. Armathwaite?"

Armathwaite removed his pipe from between teeth that were biting savagely into its stem. He wished the girl had been more discreet, yet, how could he forbid these confidences?

"Yes, and no," he answered. "Yes, if you mean to constitute yourself into a court of inquiry; no, if you take my advice, and return to Chester with Mr. Whittaker without loss of time."

"How is that possible?" she insisted, turning wondering eyes on him. "You yourself said that nothing we can do now will stop the authorities from re-opening the whole affair. There is no hope of closing people's mouths, Bob! Well, I've said it, and now Percy will be wild to learn the facts, because Meg Ogilvey doesn't run around calling by their Christian names men whom she has known a day without very good reason. But you don't know our local folk if you think our affairs are not being talked of in Elmdale and Nuttonby at this moment. Bland saw me, and James Walker will spread the 

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