"I think I'll spend the evening at the prayer-meeting," he declared, looking in at Emma, as he passed the sitting-room door. "I feel the need of such comfort now and then. Is there anything I can do for either of you up street?"
Emma shook her head; she was glad to be rid of his company for this one evening; and he went out of the front door with a quiet, benevolent air which may not have imposed on her, but which certainly did on Doris, who was watching from the garden to see him go.
They met, as she had suggested, at Dobbins' corner. As it was not quite dark, they walked into a shaded and narrow lane where they supposed themselves to be free from all observation.
"Now tell me," said he, "what your errand is. That it is important I know from the way you look. What is it, good, kind Doris; anything that will help us in our plans?"
"Perhaps," said she. "It is a letter for Mr. Etheridge; see how big and thick it is. It ought to tell a deal, this letter; it ought to explain why she never leaves the house."
The woman's curious excitement, which was made up of curiosity and a real desire to know the secret of what affected her two young mistresses so closely, was quickly communicated to the scheming, eager old man. Taking the packet from her hand, he felt of it with trembling and inquisitive fingers, during which operation it would have been hard to determine upon which face the desire to break the seal was most marked.
"It may contain papers—law papers," he suggested, his thumb and forefinger twitching as they passed over the fastening.
But Doris shook her head.
"No," she declared vivaciously, "there are no law-papers in that envelope. She has been writing and writing for a week. It is her secret, I tell you—the secret of all their queer doings, and why they stay in the house so persistently."
"Then let us surprise that secret," said he. "If we want to help them and make them do like other reasonable folks, we must know with what we have to contend."