And about two o’clock, precisely the hour which William Smith had indicated, he fancied he heard muffled and discreet noises.  Then he was sure that he heard them.  William Smith had kept his word.  Then the noises ceased for a period, and then they recommenced.  Sir Jee restrained his curiosity as long as he could, and when he could restrain it no more he rose and silently opened his bedroom window and put his head out into the nipping night air of Christmas.  And by good fortune he saw the vast oblong of the picture, carefully enveloped in sheets, being passed by a couple of dark figures through the dining-room window to the garden outside.  William Smith had a colleague, then, and he was taking the frame as well as the canvas.  Sir Jee watched the men disappear down the avenue, and they did not reappear.  Sir Jee returned to bed.

Yes, he felt himself equal to facing it out with his family and friends.  He felt himself equal to pretending that he had no knowledge of the burglary.

Having slept a few hours, he got up early and, half-dressed, descended to the dining-room just to see what sort of a mess William Smith had made.

The canvas of the portrait lay flat on the hearthrug, with the following words written on it in chalk:  ‘This is no use to me.’  It was the massive gold frame that had gone.

Further, as was later discovered, all the silver had gone.  Not a spoon was left in the castle.

NEWS OF THE ENGAGEMENT

My mother never came to meet me at Bursley station when I arrived in the Five Towns from London; much less did she come as far as Knype station, which is the great traffic centre of the district, the point at which one changes from the express into the local train.  She had always other things to do; she was ‘preparing’ for me.  So I had the little journey from Knype to Bursley, and then the walk up Trafalgar Road, amid the familiar high chimneys and the smoke and the clayey mud and the football posts and the Midland accent, all by myself.  And there was leisure to consider anew how I should break to my mother the tremendous news I had for her.  I had been considering that question ever since getting into the train at Euston, where I had said goodbye to Agnes; but in the atmosphere of the Five Towns it seemed just slightly more difficult; though, of course, it wasn’t difficult, really.

You see, I wrote to my mother regularly every week, telling her most of my doings.  She knew all my friends by name.  I dare say she formed in her mind notions of what sort of people they were.  Thus I had frequently mentioned Agnes and her family in my letters.  But you can’t write even to your mother and say in cold blood:  ’I think I am beginning to fall in love with Agnes,’ ’I think Agnes likes me,’ ‘I am mad on her,’ ‘I feel certain she likes me,’ ’I shall propose to her on such a day.’  You can’t do that.  At least I couldn’t.  Hence it had come about that on the 20th of December I had proposed to Agnes and been accepted by Agnes, and my mother had no suspicion that my happiness was so near.  And on the 22nd, by a previous and unalterable arrangement, I had come to spend Christmas with my mother.