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Rh the old woman whispered her instructions, and would have put out a hand in illustration, but the girl pushed it away.

"I understand now, Mrs. Wise. No, don't do that. I quite see what you mean. Here's the money."

"And whatever you do, don't you forget the ointment as I told you," said Mrs. Wise.

"I've been to read to poor old Mrs. Wise," Ethel said that evening to Captain Knight. "She's over eighty and her eyesight is getting very bad."

"Very good of you, Miss Custance, I'm sure," said Captain Knight, and he moved away to the other end of the drawing-room, and began to talk to a girl in yellow, with whom he had been exchanging smiles at a distance, ever since the men came in from the dining-room.

That night, when she was alone in her room, Ethel followed Mrs. Wise's instructions. She had hidden the object in a drawer, and as she drew it out, she looked about her, though the curtains were drawn close.

She forgot nothing, and when it was done she listened.