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 to see the figure of Mother Coove filling the entire hall. At least there was no disguising her. But on the steps Mánya halted a moment and gazed up in his face. She stood in front of him, deaf to Mrs. Coove's statements from the rear about wet boots. Her eyes, though shining with excitement, held a puzzled, wild expression.

'Uncle,' she whispered, with sly laughter, standing on tiptoe to kiss him, 'I wonder⁠—!' then flew upstairs to change before he could find a suitable reply.

But he wondered too, wondered what it was the child had seen. For certainly she had seen something.

Yet the thought that finally stayed with him⁠—as after all the other queer adventures they had together⁠—was this unpleasant one, that his so willing acceptance of the little intruder involved the disapproval, even the resentment, of⁠—another. It haunted him. He never could get quite free of it. Another watched, another listened, another⁠—waited. And Mánya knew.