"I have nothing for you," said Mrs. Bunker. "I don't know who you are."

"You ought to, considering you've been acting as messenger between the
cunnle and me," said the lady coolly.

"That's not true," said Mrs. Bunker hotly, to combat an inward sinking.

The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door and called
still lazily, "O Pedro!"

The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the cottage
threshold.

"Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom you took
mine?"

"Si, senora."

"They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker sullenly. "How
was I to know they were for Mrs. Kirby?"

"Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kirby, and myself are all the same. You don't suppose
the cunnle would give my real name and address? Did you address yo'r
packet to HIS real name or to some one else. Did you let your husband
know who they were for?"

Oddly, a sickening sense of the meanness of all these deceits and
subterfuges suddenly came over Mrs. Bunker. Without replying she went
to her bedroom and returned with Colonel Marion's last letter, which she