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emphatically. “It’s the goings-on ’ere I won’t put up with. No, not if I was ever so poor I wouldn’t. Respectable houses I’ve always been in, and so I shall continue. But let me tell you it’ll be my duty to let the mistress ’ear of what ’as ’appened, and what I know for my own certain knowledge.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Mrs. Pratt?” asked Ann, bewildered.

“Young ladies going into gentlemen’s bedrooms without so much as a knock, and with next to nothing on, in the dead of night, and staying there for two good solid hours, as I timed it by the clock, is more than I’ve been accustomed to in any house I’ve been in service in, and at my time of life and with a young innocent daughter, it’s what I can’t stand, and what’s more I won’t.”

“Mr. Holmes was ill...”

“Then he’s recovered very quickly,” returned Mrs. Pratt dryly, “seeing that he’s already up and been in the smoking-room this hour past writing letters.”

“Have you spoken to him about... about this?” asked Ann.

“I have not. I could not bring myself to mention so indelicate a matter to any but one of my own sect, however lacking in right feeling she may be. And to think the moment the poor dear mistress’s back is turned this should...”

“Mrs. Pratt,” said Ann, earnestly, “I beg you to believe that I’m speaking the truth. Mr. Holmes was...in great trouble. I had no idea of anything except to help him.”

“Just now I understood he was supposed to be ill.”

“You are mistaken in what you think.”