Ronald has taken rooms here. But she has not occupied them yet."

"Not occupied them yet?" The words bewildered him as if they had been spoken in an unknown tongue. He stood stupidly silent on the doorstep. His anger was gone; an all-mastering fear throbbed heavily at his heart. The landlady looked at him, and said to her secret self: "Just what I suspected; there is something wrong!"

"Perhaps I have not sufficiently explained myself, sir," she resumed with grave politeness. "Mrs. Ronald told me that she was staying at Ramsgate with friends. She would move into my house, she said, when her friends left--but they had not quite settled the day yet. She calls here for letters. Indeed, she was here early this morning, to pay the second week's rent. I asked when she thought of moving in. She didn't seem to know; her friends (as I understood) had not made up their minds. I must say I thought it a little odd. Would you like to leave any message?"

He recovered himself sufficiently to speak. "Can you tell me where her friends live?" he said.

The landlady shook her head. "No, indeed. I offered to save Mrs. Ronald the trouble of calling here, by sending letters or cards to her present residence. She declined the offer--and she has never mentioned the address. Would you like to come in and rest, sir? I will see that your card is taken care of, if you wish to leave it."

"Thank you, ma'am--it doesn't matter--good morning."

The landlady looked after him as he descended the house-steps. "It's the husband, Peggy," she said to the servant, waiting inquisitively behind her. "Poor old gentleman! And such a respectable-looking woman, too!"

Mr. Ronald walked mechanically to the end of the row of houses, and met the wide grand view of sea and sky. There were some seats behind the railing which fenced the edge of the cliff. He sat down, perfectly stupefied and helpless, on the nearest bench.

At the close of life, the loss of a man's customary nourishment extends its debilitating influence rapidly from his body to his mind. Mr. Ronald had tasted nothing but his cup of coffee since the previous night. His mind began to wander strangely; he was not angry or frightened or distressed. Instead of thinking of what had just happened, he was thinking of his young days when he had been a cricket-player. One special game revived in his memory, at which he had been struck on the head by the ball.