The Pointing Man

m to inspire a better outlook upon life. Everywhere it made itself felt in Mangadone, and like Pippa

aradise Street, dusting the gesticulating man, and went on up the river, pretending to make the brown water change its muddy mind and run backwards instead of for

, seized upon it and offered himself as her escort. She agreed with complimentary readiness, and they turned along a

have something else to think about often are; and so they rode along the twisting path, and the wind sang in the plumes of the bamboo trees, and Hartley

little Absalom yet? What a bother he has been since he took it

is face growing suddenly serious. "I have a qu

ou credit me with having Absalom's body hanging up in one of my almirahs. Hones

le laugh, and shot a look

little thing it may be, but s

m, or about s

ver you saw

of hers, but her face revealed not

Ah, but it is so long ago, Mr. Hartley, I can't even

little irritably. "The policeman on duty at t

and startled that Hartley regrette

ned, hard voice. "You have to explain to me why yo

sk questions

uriously, but Mrs. Wilder, even if she was conscious of his look, appeared quite indifferent to it. He could form no idea along what road her silent concentration led her; but he knew that she pursued an idea that was compe

an usual, and waited for her to speak. She looked before her steadily, but not with the eyes of a woman who dreams; Mrs. Wilder was thinking definitely, and while Hartley w

ll as she knew anything that her position was one of some peril, and that much more than she could weigh or measure at that moment lay beyond the next spoken word. She wa

its own net. Clarice Wilder desired to be overpowering, redundant and extreme in the wordy proof of her innocence of purpose that evening of July the 29

you are," sh

d and looked s

was what I was thinking of

river to get some fresh air," her eyes grew hazy. "I can remember thinking that Mangadone looked as if it was a great ball of amber, with the sun shining through it, but as for being able to tell you what Mr. Heath was doing, or who he was with, it is imp

ping she might turn her head, but she did not, and Hartley took his way towards his own house and thought very little of Absalom or the Rev. Francis Heath. One thing he did think of, and that was that Mrs. Wilder had looked at him earnestly, and said that she wished he was not "mixed up" in anything likely to bring uneasiness to

g that she would, and once she had turned the first bend she touched the pony with her heel an

e word several times with increasing animosity and vigour. She hated Hartley at that moment, and felt

s playing tricks with her nerves. She knew that she had done creditably under the strain of a

s careless eye, Clarice was oddly abstracted, and he glanced at her curiously,

were a thousand other things she might have said or done, a hundred ways by which she might have appealed to Hartley, and yet her common sense told her that the less she said on the subject the better it would be, if, in the end, the Rev. Fra

ked out the question as he got up to l

and her laugh was

and met Mr. Hartley. He is the

shortly. "He's about here frequently

de her eyes focus him ver

he is blessed with a skin that would turn the edge of any o

is hanging on quite perceptibly, and if it entertains you to slang him behind his back, I suppose you will slang him, but he won't drop off before you've done with him, Clarice, if I know anything of your methods." Her face flushed and she began to look angry. "Mind you, I don't object to Hartley. As you

bout the emphasis he

bly," she said, but her voice was

es hear these things until the knowledge comes too late to be of any use to him. You have got to have your strings"-he shrugged his shoulders-"because your life isn't here, in this house; it is at the Club, and at dinners an

e he spoke, and his colourless f

iable tone. "We have to entertain, Draycott, and you can't round on me

a woman, Clarice, and when you're worried, as you are to-day, you show it; though how an im

"You aren't troubling t

l the more. You can go on smiling at any number of idiots, because yo

ange the conversation. Quagmires are bad ground for walking, and she was in a hurry

ears. Draycott-be

in his cold heart would have flared up, but h

"Only I can't quite forget

nd touched his face

I am old-and thirty-six isn't so very d

a distant bend, and watched him return her signal, and then she went back into the large drawing-

about disguised as Heads of Police, and had added another specimen to th