Dialstone Lane | Page 8

his pipe
placed them on the table.
"Suppose that you had heard afterwards that the things had been
stolen?" he remarked.
"If I had, then I should have given information, I think," said the other.
"It all depends."
"Ah! but how could you have found them again?" inquired Mr. Chalk,
with the air of one propounding a poser.
[Illustration: "'How could you have found them again?' inquired Mr.
Chalk, with the air of one propounding a poser."]
"With my map," said the captain, slowly. "Before I left I made a map of
the island and got its position from the schooner that picked me up; but
I never heard a word from that day to this."
"Could you find them now?" said Mr. Chalk.
"Why not?" said the captain, with a short laugh. "The island hasn't run
away."
He rose as he spoke and, tossing the fragments of his visitor's pipe into

the fireplace, invited him to take a turn in the garden. Mr. Chalk, after a
feeble attempt to discuss the matter further, reluctantly obeyed.
CHAPTER III
Mr. Chalk, with his mind full of the story he had just heard, walked
homewards like a man in a dream. The air was fragrant with spring and
the scent of lilac revived memories almost forgotten. It took him back
forty years, and showed him a small boy treading the same road,
passing the same houses. Nothing had changed so much as the small
boy himself; nothing had been so unlike the life he had pictured as the
life he had led. Even the blamelessness of the latter yielded no comfort;
it savoured of a lack of spirit.
[Illustration: "A small boy treading the same road."]
His mind was still busy with the past when he reached home. Mrs.
Chalk, a woman of imposing appearance, who was sitting by the
window at needlework, looked up sharply at his entrance. Before she
spoke he had a dim idea that she was excited about something.
"I've got her," she said, triumphantly.
"Oh!" said Mr. Chalk.
"She didn't want to come at first," said Mrs. Chalk;" she'd half
promised to go to Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris had heard of her through
Harris, the grocer, and he only knew she was out of a place by accident.
He--"
Her words fell on deaf ears. Mr. Chalk, gazing through the window,
heard without comprehending a long account of the capture of a new
housemaid, which, slightly altered as to name and place, would have
passed muster as an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a
particularly sulky salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last,
pulled up sharply.
"You're not listening!" she cried.

"Yes, I am; go on, my dear," said Mr. Chalk.
"What did I say she left her last place for, then?" demanded the lady.
Mr. Chalk started. He had been conscious of his wife's voice, and that
was all. "You said you were not surprised at her leaving," he replied,
slowly;" the only wonder to you was that a decent girl should have
stayed there so long."
Mrs. Chalk started and bit her lip. "Yes," she said, slowly. "Ye-es. Go
on; anything else?"
"You said the house wanted cleaning from top to bottom," said the
painstaking Mr. Chalk.
"Go on," said his wife, in a smothered voice. "What else did I say?"
"Said you pitied the husband," continued Mr. Chalk, thoughtfully.
Mrs. Chalk rose suddenly and stood over him. Mr. Chalk tried
desperately to collect his faculties.
"How dare you?" she gasped. "I've never said such things in my life.
Never. And I said that she left because Mr. Wilson, her master, was
dead and the family had gone to London. I've never been near the house;
so how could I say such things?"
Mr. Chalk remained silent.
"What made you think of such things?" persisted Mrs. Chalk.
Mr. Chalk shook his head; no satisfactory reply was possible. "My
thoughts were far away," he said, at last.
His wife bridled and said, "Oh, indeed!" Mr. Chalk's mother, dead
some ten years before, had taken a strange pride--possibly as a protest
against her only son's appearance--in hinting darkly at a stormy and
chequered past. Pressed for details she became more mysterious still,
and, saying that "she knew what she knew," declined to be deprived of

the knowledge under any consideration. She also informed her
daughter-in-law that "what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve," and
that it was better to "let bygones be bygones," usually winding up with
the advice to the younger woman to keep her eye on Mr. Chalk without
letting him see it.
"Peckham Rye is a long way off, certainly," added the indignant Mrs.
Chalk, after a pause. "It's a pity you haven't got something better to
think of, at your time