Miss Adamson was away for an hour. She would not have been so long, but she met a number of people, and of course they all wanted to know about the accident and about how Miss Garstone was, and what with telling them and their saying how dreadful it was, and how shocking to think that anyone would run a woman down and not see if they had killed her, the time just slipped away. Then she had to let herself into her cottage and feed her cat and get what she wanted for the night, and it all took time. She hurried all she could, and then she made haste back along the lonely stretch of road where the accident had happened, and round the corner past the gate into Mr. Carpenter’s farm, and then on to where the light shone from the window of the room where Jenny was watching. On the other side of the road was the empty lodge of Alington House where the Forbeses lived.

Miss Adamson felt a momentary twinge of resentment. She wouldn’t have said that she got on well with Mrs. Forbes. She made it her business to get on well with everyone, but try as you will, if you’ve got a feeling you’ve got a feeling, and in her inmost heart Miss Adamson knew that she had a feeling about Mrs. Forbes. She didn’t stop to think about it, but it was there as she put away her bicycle in the shed and walked up the dark garden path to go in by the kitchen door. Put into words, it would have been something of this kind-“She’s always here when she’s not wanted, and come the time when she might be some use she’s away. Not that I suppose she’d have put her hand to anything if she’d been here.” The thought was in her mind, if words did not clothe it.