‘I have known them all my life, and Mary Anne is such a sad invalid.’ Miss Silver smiled, and spoke the simple truth. ‘I shall be delighted to call on the Miss Doncasters.’ ‘Then I will just finish the letter I was writing to my cousin Sophy Ferrars. It will not take me long, and it will give them time to finish their tea.’ The afternoon was mild and fair. Miss Silver put on her hat, her gloves, and a light summer coat, and strolled in the garden, where the trees made a shady pattern across Miss Sophy’s lawn. It was very agreeable – very agreeable indeed. If her mind had been at rest, she would have been enjoying her visit very much. But her mind was very far from being at rest – oh, very far indeed. She walked up and down upon the grass and considered the unsatisfactory details of the Harsch case. From nowhere on her left a voice of peculiar shrillness spoke her name. No one who had heard that voice could possibly mistake it.
