“It was foolish of him to interfere,” observed the doctor.

“Of course I slipped away as quickly as I could,” went on the girl, “but as I went down the passage I heard Lucy call out: ‘I hate you, Miss Cheale! I hate Mrs. Garlett! I hate everybody in this house!’ Oh, it was dreadful—and I felt so sorry for them all.”

Five hours later Jean Bower lay asleep in the big, comfortable bedroom which had been made so pretty for her by her kind aunt. The girl stirred uneasily, for she was dreaming a strange, a terrible, and most vivid dream.

She was at the Etna China factory taking down letters from the dictation of her employer, Mr. Garlett. Though she had been at the factory for a full month Jean had seen very little of the managing director. But they had made friends during their walk from Grendon to Terriford, and in her dream she was enjoying the change of taking down dictation from a man who knew exactly what he wanted to say instead of from weary-brained, hesitating old Mr. Dodson. And then, suddenly looking up, she saw that, pressed against the central pane of the window behind Mr. Garlett was a face convulsed with hatred—and the face was that of Agatha Cheale!

A feeling of icy terror crept over her, for the managing director’s room was on the first floor of the building, far above the ground of the stone-paved courtyard round which the Etna China factory had been built close on seventy years ago.

With a stifled cry the girl awoke and sat up in bed, the horror of her nightmare still so vividly real that her teeth were chattering and her hands trembling in the darkness.

Then there gradually came to her the reassuring knowledge as to why she had dreamed that strange, unnatural dream. It was of course owing to her having seen Agatha Cheale, her face distorted with anger, dismissing Lucy Warren at the Thatched House yesterday morning!

But her feeling of reassurance and relief did not last long, 33for suddenly a stone came crashing in through the window nearest to her. Jumping out of bed she rushed across the room and threw up the lower sash of the window.

33

“Who’s there?” she called out, and then, “What do you want?”

To her amazement it was Harry Garlett’s voice that called back, “Please forgive me, Miss Bower. I’ve come for the doctor. My wife has been taken seriously ill. I rang the 

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