“Well, I fancy so. Some of us thought they were making up to one another before Sir Dace died—when Ben was attending him. Don’t you recollect how much old Fontaine liked Ben?—he’d have had him by his side always. Ben’s getting on like a house on fire; has unusual skill in surgery and is wonderful at operations: he performed a very critical one upon old Massock this summer, and the man is about again as sturdy and impudent as ever.”
“Does Ben live down here entirely?”
“He goes up to London between whiles—in pursuit of his studies and the degrees he means to take. He is there now. Oh, he’ll get on. You’ll see.”
“Well, what else, Letsom?” cried Tod. “You have told us no news about anybody yet.”
“Because there’s none to tell.”
“How do those two old dames get on—the Dennets?”
“Oh, they are gone off to some baths in Germany for a twelvemonth, with suppressed gout, and their house is let to a mysterious tenant.”
“Mysterious in what way?”
“Well, nobody sees her, and she keeps the doors bolted and barred. The Dennets left it all in Mrs. Cramp’s hands, being intimate with her, for they started in a hurry, and she put it into a new agent’s hands at Worcester, and he put an advertisement in the papers. Some lady answered it, a stranger; she agreed to all conditions by letter, took possession of the house, and has shut herself up as if something uncanny were inside it. Mrs. Cramp does not like it at all; and queer rumours are beginning to go about.”
“What’s her name?”