ward off consequences which might indirectly be unpleasant for her. But of him and his news she thought little—what occupied her mind was the possible connection between the stranger who had come so suddenly and disappeared so suddenly—and for ever!—and Mark Ransford. Was it possible—really possible—that there had been some meeting between them in or about the Cathedral precincts that morning? She knew, after a moment’s reflection, that it was very possible—why not? And from that her thoughts followed a natural trend—was the mystery surrounding this man connected in any way with the mystery about herself and her brother?—that mystery of which (as it seemed to her) Ransford was so shy of speaking. And again—and for the hundredth time—she asked herself why he was so reticent, so evidently full of dislike of the subject, why he could not tell her and Dick whatever there was to tell, once for all?
She had to pass the Folliots’ house in the far corner of the Close on her way home—a fine old mansion set in well-wooded grounds, enclosed by a high wall of old red brick. A door in that wall stood open, and inside it, talking to one of his gardeners, was Mr. Folliot—the vistas behind him were gay with flowers and rich with the roses which he passed all his days in cultivating. He caught sight of Mary as she passed the open doorway and called her back.
“Come in and have a look at some new roses I’ve got,” he said. “Beauties! I’ll give you a handful to carry home.”
Mary rather liked Mr. Folliot. He was a big, half-asleep sort of man, who had few words and could talk about little else than his hobby. But he was a passionate lover of flowers and plants, and had a positive genius for rose-culture, and was at all times highly delighted to take flower-lovers round his garden. She turned at once and walked in, and Folliot led her away down the scented paths.
“It’s an experiment I’ve been trying,” he said, leading her up to a cluster of blooms of a colour and size which she had never seen before. “What do you think of the results?”
“Magnificent!” exclaimed Mary. “I never saw anything so fine!”
“No!” agreed Folliot, with a quiet chuckle. “Nor anybody else—because there’s no such rose in England. I shall have to go to some of these learned parsons in the Close to invent me a Latin name for this—it’s the result of careful experiments in grafting—took me three years to get at it. And see how it blooms,—scores on one standard.”
He pulled out a knife and began to select a handful of the finest blooms, which he presently pressed into Mary’s hand.
“By the by,” he remarked as she thanked him and they turned away along the path, “I wanted to have a word with you—or with Ransford. Do you know—does he know—that that confounded silly woman who lives near to your house—Mrs. Deramore—has been saying some things—or a thing—which—to put it plainly—might make some unpleasantness for him?”
Mary kept a firm hand on her wits—and gave him an answer which was true enough, so far as she was aware.
“I’m sure he knows nothing,” she said. “What is it, Mr. Folliot?”
“Why, you know what happened last week,” continued Folliot, glancing knowingly at her. “The accident to that stranger. This Mrs. Deramore, who’s nothing but an old chatterer, has been saying, here and there, that it’s a very queer thing Dr. Ransford doesn’t know anything about him, and can’t say anything, for she herself, she says, saw the very man going away from Dr. Ransford’s house not so long before the accident.”
“I am not aware that he ever called at Dr. Ransford’s,” said Mary. “I never saw him—and I was in the garden, about that very time, with your stepson, Mr. Folliot.”
“So Sackville told me,” remarked Folliot. “He was present—and so was I—when Mrs. Deramore was tattling about it in our house yesterday. He said, then, that he’d never seen the man go to your house. You never heard your servants make any remark about it?”
“Never!” answered Mary.
“I told Mrs. Deramore she’d far better hold her tongue,” continued Folliot. “Tittle-tattle of that sort is apt to lead to unpleasantness. And when it came to it, it turned out that all she had seen was this stranger strolling across the Close as if he’d just left your house. If—there’s always some if! But I’ll tell you why I mentioned it to you,” he continued, nudging Mary’s elbow and glancing covertly first at her and then at his house on the far side of the garden. “Ladies that are—getting on a bit in years, you know—like my wife, are apt to let their tongues wag, and between you and me, I shouldn’t wonder if Mrs. Folliot has repeated what Mrs. Deramore said—eh? And I don’t want the doctor to think that—if he hears anything, you know, which he may, and, again, he might—to think that it originated here. So, if he should ever mention it to you, you can say it sprang from his next-door neighbour. Bah!—they’re a lot of old gossips, these Close ladies!”
“Thank you,” said Mary. “But—supposing this man had been to our house—what difference would that make? He might have been for half a dozen reasons.”
Folliot looked at her out of his half-shut eyes.
“Some people would want to know why Ransford didn’t tell that—at the inquest,” he answered. “That’s all. When there’s a bit of mystery, you know—eh?”
He nodded—as if reassuringly—and went off to rejoin his gardener, and Mary walked home with her roses, more thoughtful than ever. Mystery?—a bit of mystery? There was a vast and heavy cloud of mystery, and she knew she could have no peace until it was lifted.
Chapter XI. The Back Room
In the midst of all her perplexity at that moment, Mary Bewery was certain of one fact about which she had no perplexity nor any doubt—it would not be long before the rumours of which Bryce and Mr. Folliot had spoken. Although she had only lived in Wrychester a comparatively short time she had seen and learned enough of it to know that the place was a hotbed of gossip. Once gossip was started there, it spread, widening in circle after circle. And though Bryce was probably right when he said that the person chiefly concerned was usually the last person to hear what was being whispered, she knew well enough that sooner or later this talk about Ransford would come to Ransford’s own ears. But she had no idea that it was to come so soon, nor from her own brother.
Lunch in the Ransford menage was an informal meal. At a quarter past one every day, it was on the table—a cold lunch to which the three members of the household helped themselves as they liked, independent of the services of servants. Sometimes all three were there at the same moment; sometimes Ransford was half an hour late; the one member who was always there to the moment was Dick Bewery, who fortified himself sedulously after his morning’s school labours. On this particular day all three met in the dining-room at once, and sat down together. And before Dick had eaten many mouthfuls of a cold pie to which he had just liberally helped himself he bent confidentially across the table towards his guardian.
“There’s something I think you ought to be told about, sir,” he remarked with a side-glance at Mary. “Something I heard this morning at school. You know, we’ve a lot of fellows—town boys—who talk.”
“I daresay,” responded Ransford dryly. “Following the example of their mothers, no doubt. Well—what is it?”
He, too, glanced at Mary—and the girl had her work set to look unconscious.
“It’s
