"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. "t.i.ttle-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 rea.s.suringly--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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 this," replied d.i.c.k, lowering his voice in spite of the fact that all three were alone. "They're saying in the town that you know something which you won't tell about that affair last week. It's being talked of."

Ransford laughed--a little cynically.

"Are you quite sure, my boy, that they aren't saying that I daren't tell?" he asked. "Daren't is a much more likely word than won't, I think."

"Well--about that, sir," acknowledged d.i.c.k. "Comes to that, anyhow."

"And what are their grounds?" inquired Ransford. "You've heard them, I'll be bound!"

"They say that man--Braden--had been here--here, to the house!--that morning, not long before he was found dead," answered d.i.c.k. "Of course, I said that was all bosh!--I said that if he'd been here and seen you, I'd have heard of it, dead certain."

"That's not quite so dead certain, d.i.c.k, as that I have no knowledge of his ever having been here," said Ransford. "But who says he came here?"

"Mrs. Deramore," replied d.i.c.k promptly. "She says she saw him go away from the house and across the Close, a little before ten. So Jim Deramore says, anyway--and he says his mother's eyes are as good as another's."

"Doubtless!" a.s.sented Ransford. He looked at Mary again, and saw that she was keeping hers fixed on her plate. "Well," he continued, "if it will give you any satisfaction, d.i.c.k, you can tell the gossips that Dr.

Ransford never saw any man, Braden or anybody else, at his house that morning, and that he never exchanged a word with Braden. So much for that! But," he added, "you needn't expect them to believe you. I know these people--if they've got an idea into their heads they'll ride it to death. Nevertheless, what I say is a fact."

d.i.c.k presently went off--and once more Ransford looked at Mary. And this time, Mary had to meet her guardian's inquiring glance.

"Have you heard anything of this?" he asked.

"That there was a rumour--yes," she replied without hesitation.

"But--not until just now--this morning."

"Who told you of it?" inquired Ransford.

Mary hesitated. Then she remembered that Mr. Folliot, at any rate, had not bound her to secrecy.

"Mr. Folliot," she replied. "He called me into his garden, to give me those roses, and he mentioned that Mrs. Deramore had said these things to Mrs. Folliot, and as he seemed to think it highly probable that Mrs.

Folliot would repeat them, he told me because he didn't want you to think that the rumour had originally arisen at his house."

"Very good of him, I'm sure," remarked Ransford dryly. "They all like to shift the blame from one to another! But," he added, looking searchingly at her, "you don't know anything about--Braden's having come here?"

He saw at once that she did, and Mary saw a slight shade of anxiety come over his face.

"Yes, I do!" she replied. "That morning. But--it was told to me, only today, in strict confidence."

"In strict confidence!" he repeated. "May I know--by whom?"

"Dr. Bryce," she answered. "I met him this morning. And I think you ought to know. Only--it was in confidence." She paused for a moment, looking at him, and her face grew troubled. "I hate to suggest it,"

she continued, "but--will you come with me to see him, and I'll ask him--things being as they are--to tell you what he told me. I can't--without his permission."

Ransford shook his head and frowned.

"I dislike it!" he said. "It's--it's putting ourselves in his power, as it were. But--I'm not going to be left in the dark. Put on your hat, then."