which had come over me during my first talk with Frances on the evening of my arrival, for I recall now the acute tension, and the hope, yet dread, that one or other of us must sooner or later introduce the subject.  It did not happen, however; no reference was made to it even remotely.  It was the presence of Mabel, I felt positive, that prohibited.  As soon might we have discussed Death in the bedroom of a dying woman.

The only scrap of conversation I remember, where all was ordinary and commonplace, was when Mabel spoke casually to the grenadier asking why Mrs. Marsh had omitted to do something or other—­what it was I forget—­ and that the maid replied respectfully that “Mrs. Marsh was very sorry, but her ’and still pained her.”  I enquired, though so casually that I scarcely know what prompted the words, whether she had injured herself severely, and the reply, “She upset a lamp and burnt herself,” was said in a tone that made me feel my curiosity was indiscreet, “but she always has an excuse for not doing things she ought to do.”  The little bit of conversation remained with me, and I remember particularly the quick way Frances interrupted and turned the talk upon the delinquencies of servants in general, telling incidents of her own at our flat with a volubility that perhaps seemed forced, and that certainly did not encourage general talk as it may have been intended to do.  We lapsed into silence immediately she finished.

But for all our care and all our calculated silence, each knew that something had, in these last moments, come very close; it had brushed us in passing; it had retired; and I am inclined to think now that the large dark thing I saw, riding the dusk, probably bird of prey, was in some sense a symbol of it in my mind—­that actually there had been no bird at all, I mean, but that my mood of apprehension and dismay had formed the vivid picture in my thoughts.  It had swept past us, it had retreated, but it was now, at this moment, in hiding very close.  And it was watching us.

Perhaps, too, it was mere coincidence that I encountered Mrs. Marsh, his housekeeper, several times that evening in the short interval between tea and dinner, and that on each occasion the sight of this gaunt, half-saturnine woman fed my prejudice against her.  Once, on my way to the telephone, I ran into her just where the passage is somewhat jammed by a square table carrying the Chinese gong, a grandfather’s clock and a box of croquet mallets.  We both gave way, then both advanced, then again gave way—­simultaneously.  It seemed, impossible to pass.  We stepped with decision to the same side, finally colliding in the middle, while saying those futile little things, half apology, half excuse, that are inevitable at such times.  In the end she stood upright against the wall for me to pass, taking her place against the very door I wished to open.  It was ludicrous.

“Excuse me—­I was just going in—­to telephone,” I explained.  And she sidled off, murmuring apologies, but opening the door for me while she did so.  Our hands met a moment on the handle.