"And where did all this happen?" inquired the general, more interested than he had been.
"Near a ravine, some distance down the stream. You will not perhaps be able to recognize the place, sir," answered Mabel, "but it is nearly opposite the small house in which Miss Barker resides with her mother."
The general did not start, but a strange expression crept over his features, as if he were becoming more interested and less pleased.
"May I ask you what took you in that direction, madam?"
"Nothing better than a caprice, I fear," answered Mabel; "at first I went out for exercise and solitude, then remembering Miss Barker, I put on shore."
"Surely you did not go to that house!" cried the general, interrupting her almost for the first time in his life.
"Yes, I went," answered Mabel with simplicity.
"Indeed! and what did you find—whom did you see?"
"I saw a dusky woman, rude and insolent, who called herself Agnes Barker's nurse—nothing more."
"So you found an insolent woman."