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to marry him was Mr. Davenant⁠—I expect you know that he belongs to these parts too."

"I didn't actually know it." The phrase suggested that Reeves might have inferred it, but had not any direct information on the point. "I suppose he didn't live at the Hatcheries then?"

"No, his people had a house near here, which has been pulled down since. His mother, of course, was an Oatvile."

"To be sure." Reeves sucked his pencil, and wrote down "Mr. Davenant senior m. Miss Oatvile." Then a light burst upon him⁠—"Good heavens!" he said, "then that's why he knew about the secret passage?"

"He would, of course. He's told me that he used often to play here when he was a boy. Then there was a coolness between his people and the Oatviles, I think because his people became Catholics. No quarrel, you know, only they didn't see so much of each other after that. Anyhow, Mr. Davenant was badly in love with me and wanted me to marry him. I wouldn't⁠—partly because I wasn't quite sure whether I liked him, partly because my father was very Low Church, and he'd have been certain to make trouble over it. Then the Davenants left the place, and I did too after my father died; and we didn't see any more of one another."

"When was that?"

"Three or four years before the war⁠—1910 I suppose it must have been. I started out to work for a living, because my father hadn't left us very