"We have lived here for four years," she said, "and he has never once suggested it. He goes himself, of course, sometimes, but I am quite sure that he doesn't enjoy it. For days before he fidgets about and looks perfectly miserable, and when he comes back he always goes off for a long walk by himself. I am perfectly certain that for some reason or other he hates going. Yet he seems to have been everywhere, to know every one. To hear him talk with Mrs. Handsell is like a new Arabian Nights to me."
"Your uncle was a very distinguished man," he said. "I was only at college then, but I remember what a fuss there was in all the papers when he resigned his seat."
"What did they say was the reason?" she asked, eagerly.
"A slight disagreement with Lord Rochester, and ill-health."
"Absurd!" she exclaimed. "Uncle is as strong as a horse."
"Would you like him," he asked, "to go back into political life?"
"You may have your wish," he said, a little sadly. "I don't fancy he has been quite the same man since Sir Leslie Borrowdean was here, and Mrs. Handsell never leaves him alone for a moment."
"You talk as though they were conspirators!" she exclaimed.
"That is precisely what I believe them to be," he answered, grimly.
"Can't help it," he declared. "I will tell you something that I have no right to tell you. Mrs. Handsell is not your friend's real name."
"Richard, how exciting!" she exclaimed. "Do tell me how you know."
"Her solicitors told mine so when she took the farm."
"Not her real name? But--I wonder they let it to her."
"Oh, her references were all right," he answered. "My people saw to that. I do not mean to insinuate for a moment that she had any improper reasons for calling herself Mrs. Handsell, or anything else she liked. The explanations given were quite satisfactory. But she has become very friendly with you and with your uncle, and I think that she ought to have told you both about it."
"No! It is not my affair. My solicitors knew, and they were satisfied. Perhaps I ought not to have told you this, but--"
"Hush!" she said. "They are coming out. If you like you can take me down to the orchard wall, and we will watch the tide come in--"
Mannering came out alone and looked around. The full moon was creeping into the sky. The breath of wind which shook the leaves of the tall elm trees that shut in his little demesne from the village, was soft, and, for the time of year, wonderfully mild. Below, through the orchard trees, were faint visions of the marshland, riven with creeks of silvery sea. He turned back towards the room, where red-shaded lamps still stood upon the white tablecloth, a curiously artificial daub of color after the splendour of the moonlit land.