'He got drunk like a gentleman, at all events. None of your sauce, Black, or I'll have you chucked. You know me by this time, I hope.'

In fact, as several of the customers remarked, Miss Bell was in a fine temper that morning, and her tongue raged round like a prairie fire. This bad humour was ascribed by the public to the extra work entailed on her by the sensation caused by the murder, but the true cause lay with Gabriel. He had promised faithfully, on the previous night, to come round and see Mrs Mosk, but, to Bell's anger, had failed to put in an appearance—the first time he had done such a thing. As Miss Mosk's object was always to have an ostensible reason for seeing Gabriel in order to protect her character, she was not at all pleased that he had not turned her excuse for calling on him into an actual fact. It is true that Gabriel presented himself late in the afternoon and requested to see the invalid, but instead of taking him up to the sickroom, Bell whirled the curate into a small back parlour and closed the door, in order, as she remarked, 'to have it out with him.'

'Now, then,' said she, planting her back against the door, 'what do you mean by treating me like a bit of dirt?'

'You mean that I did not come round last night, Bell?'

'Yes, I do. I told mother you would visit her. I said to Jacob Jarper as I'd come to ask you to see mother, and you go and make me out a liar by not turning up. What do you mean?'

'I was ill and couldn't keep my promise,' said Gabriel, shortly.

'Ill!' said Bell, looking him up and down; 'well, you do look ill. You've been washed and wrung out till you're limp as a rag. White in the face, black under the eyes! What have you been doing with yourself, I'd like to know. You were all right when I left you last night.'

'The weather affected my nerves,' explained Gabriel, with a weary sigh, passing his thin hand across his anxious face. 'I felt that it was impossible for me to sit in a close room and talk to a sick woman, so I went round to the stables where I keep my horse, and took him out in order to get a breath of fresh air.'

'What! You rode out at that late hour, in all that storm?'

'The storm came on later. I went out almost immediately after you left, and got back at half-past ten. It wasn't so very late.'