She looked him up and down, as if she were endeavouring, by mere force of visual inspection, to make out what kind of a man he was.

"I want to ask you a question. Answer it truthfully, if you can. Is the man in front a policeman?"

He started with what seemed genuine surprise.

"A policeman! Good heavens, no."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. He's very far from being a policeman--rather, if anything, the other way." What he meant to infer, she did not know; but he laughed shortly, "What makes you ask such a thing?"

She was holding the door open in her hand. He had crossed the threshold and stood without. Malice--and something else--gleamed in her eyes.

"Because," she answered, "I wondered if you were a thief."

With that she slammed the door in his face and turned the key. Then, slipping into the kitchen which was on her left, keeping the door on the jar, remaining well in the shadow, she watched his proceedings through the window.

For a moment he stayed where she had left him standing, as if rooted to the spot. Then, with an exaggerated courtesy, taking off his hat, he bowed to the door. Turning, he marched down the garden path, his tall figure seeming more gigantic than ever as she noted how straight he held himself. In a twinkling he was over the fence and hedge. Once on the other side, he shook his fist at Clover Cottage.

The watcher in the kitchen clenched her teeth as she perceived the gesture.

"Ungrateful creature! And to think that a man who has the very spirit of music in his soul, and who plays the piano like an angel, should be such a wretch! That a monster seven feet high, who looks like a combination of Samson and Goliath rolled into one, should be such a coward and a cur--afraid of a pigmy five foot high! I hope I've seen the last of him. If I have any more such pupils I shall have to shut up shop. Now perhaps I shall be allowed to post my MS. and run across to Brown's to get a chop for Ella's tea."

With that she passed from the back to the front. Outside the front door she paused to look around her and take her bearings, half doubtful as 

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