Harry Gaston's face hardly relaxed.
"You don't believe a word of it," he asserted sternly.
"Of course I do," she replied soothingly, "and I quite see that, with us nowhere near you, all your senses became refined, and you penetrated behind the curtain. Yes, I see all that, Harry. But she might, perhaps, have told you a little more, mightn't she? As a story, it almost sounds unfinished."
Harry Caston rose to his feet.
"I tell you what you are doing," he said, standing over her--"you are getting a little of your own back."
"But such a very little, Harry," murmured Mrs. Wordingham; and Harry Caston flung out of the room.
He did not refer to the subject again for some little while. But in the month of December, on one foggy afternoon, he arrived with a new book under his arm. He put it down on the floor beside his chair rather ostentatiously, as one inviting questions. Mrs. Wordingham was serenely unaware of the book.
"Where have you been, Harry?" she asked as she gave him a cup of tea.
"In Norfolk--shooting," he said.
"Many birds?"