Meanwhile Margery had recovered her equanimity, and gathered up the
broken cheese. But she could by no means account for the
handwriting. Jim was just the sort of fellow to play her such a
trick at ordinary times, but she imagined him to be far too incensed
against her to do it now; and she suddenly wondered if it were any
sort of signal from the Baron himself.

Of him she had lately heard nothing. If ever monotony pervaded a
life it pervaded hers at Rook's Gate; and she had begun to despair of
any happy change. But it is precisely when the social atmosphere
seems stagnant that great events are brewing. Margery's quiet was
broken first, as we have seen, by a slight start, only sufficient to
make her drop a cheese; and then by a more serious matter.

She was inside the same garden one day when she heard two watermen
talking without. The conversation was to the effect that the strange
gentleman who had taken Mount Lodge for the season was seriously ill.

'How ill?' cried Margery through the hedge, which screened her from
recognition.

'Bad abed,' said one of the watermen.

'Inflammation of the lungs,' said the other.

'Got wet, fishing,' the first chimed in.

Margery could gather no more. An ideal admiration rather than any
positive passion existed in her breast for the Baron: she had of