He read the telegram three times, but it was not till the third reading that he grasped the import of "Arkwright twin." He knew no one of the name of Arkwright, nor had he ever claimed acquaintance with a twin. "The nearest I could do is triplets," he thought. "Johnson of the House was a triplet, I remember, but that's no good to me.... Who on earth...?" And then he recalled Beatrice saying that she had a twin sister who had disapproved of her stage career. Of course it must be she. He had been so accustomed to think of his preceptress as Beatrice Blair that he had almost forgotten it must be a stage name. And so she was really an Arkwright—rather a pretty name on the whole, though unworthy of her high claims; failing Beatrice Blair, it ought to have been Rosalind ... Rosalind what? Rosalind Roy ... Rosalind Gay ... Rosalind Ebbsfleet ... Rosalind Wise.... He smiled as his thoughts played with a score of dainty conceits. He was roused to common sense and depression by the remembrance that she was really Mrs. Lukos. But was Lukos a surname? "Let's hope not," he reflected sourly.
"No bad news, I trust," said the chubby clergyman, with a polite but ecclesiastical inflection.
"No—no," answered Lionel abruptly. He abandoned Rosalind completely and tried to arrange his thoughts. "By the way, do you happen to know any one of the name of Arkwright in the neighborhood?"
The chubby clergyman looked interested.
"I do and I don't," he said, pulling his chair close to the table and leaning on his elbows. "A Miss Arkwright lives at The Quiet House. She has been the tenant for only two months, and nobody has seen her yet."
"What!"
"It sounds odd," said the clergyman with the smile of one who has an interesting story for a virgin audience, "but it is true. She calls on nobody, and denies herself to every caller. She is never seen in the village except when driving in her motor, and I am sorry to say that she does not come to church."
"But surely something is known of her,—through the servants, for instance——"
"She has a housekeeper, I believe, who makes friends with nobody; a dumb gardener and a dumb footman. A little extraordinary, eh?" He rubbed his hands with zest. "But it is true none the less. Of course, all sorts of gossip have been greedily accepted. I never listen to gossip—one has to think of one's position—but some things can not be hid.... They say she takes motor drives at night,—every night. I do not credit the 'every'—exaggeration is so prevalent. I always believe less than half what the villagers tell me—that is, what drifts round to my ears."
"But what does she do all day?" asked Lionel. Clearly this was a queer state of affairs.